Are Our Climate Data Fit for Your Purpose?

This paper describes the vision and objectives for evaluation and quality control of datasets available on the Climate Data Store (CDS) of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The CDS is a cloud service providing reliable, open, and free access to climate datasets from many different sources, including observations and derived climate data records, global and regional reanalysis products, and output from global and regional climate models. CDS data and information are widely used to monitor climate change, for policy development, environmental impact studies, business plans, public awareness, and many other purposes. CDS users include policymakers, technical consultants, and data scientists who are climate literate but not necessarily specialized in climate science. A key objective for C3S is to simplify data discovery and access and to ensure that all information provided is fit for purpose. The role of evaluation and quality control is to generate useful statements about the technical and scientific quality of the datasets available on the CDS, presented in a form that can be mapped directly to user requirements associated with specific application contexts. The ambition is to enable users to select, locate, access, and process climate data that are fit for purpose, simply by expressing their requirements in their own words. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: This article is about making it easier for nonspecialists to use climate data effectively for purposes that extend beyond scientific analysis, such as policy development, environmental impact studies, business plans, and public awareness. In addition to simplifying access to the wealth of climate data available today, we need to provide more information about data quality that users can understand and use to determine fitness for purpose.