Weather and climate monitoring data acquisition, analysis, and reporting manual

Wright, Christina

This Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) includes instructions for acquiring and analyzing data for the creation of the annual data summary report for the weather and climate monitoring as a part of the Southeast Coast Network (SECN) Inventory and Monitoring Program. The instructions herein are presented using the SECN 2012 weather and climate data report as an example. This SOP includes step by step instructions for acquiring data, analyzing data and creating a data summary report for the weather and climate monitoring efforts being undertaken by the SECN. Weather and climate monitoring in the SECN is a data acquisition protocol. In other words, data are collected by other agencies outside the National Park Service (NPS), acquired from online archives, and analyzed and summarized for stations deemed relevant to SECN parks. In this case, the requisite Quality assurance and control (QA/QC) procedures regarding data quality of individual measurements are performed by the agency collecting the data. The SECN reviews the QA/QC designations in the course of data analysis and additional QA/QC procedures, such as the removal of suspect data, may be performed prior to analysis as described herein.