1. Range Checks of Coastal Environmental Monitoring Data Lei Hu Dauphin Island Sea Lab lhu@dis.org Brenda Leroux Babin Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium bbabin@lsu.edu

2. Dauphin Island Sea Lab http://www.mymobilebay.com/

3. Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium http://weather.lumcon.edu/

4. Introduction Purpose of real-time monitoring system Provide researchers, educators, and the public with quality data for planning and decision making. Quality Assurance Actions taken while data is being collected to ensure that the data are "good." Quality Control Steps taken after the data is collected to ensure the data is "good" before the data is released to the public.

5. Quality Assurance of Real-time Oceanography Data (QARTOD) Quality Control First Step: insure completeness of the data set 1. transmission check—valid message was received 2. time stamp validity check 3. a check for service schedule of hardware Second Step: various range checks on data 1. initial gross range checks based on instrument specifications and range checks based on climatology of the area. 2. checks against trends in data and checks against nearby stations. QARTOD suggests that this Quality Control should be automated and yet contain a manual check by a human component.

6. Planning An automated range-check system Meteorological Data Air Temperature-10 ° C < And < 50 ° C Wind Direction0 degree < And <360 degrees Wind Speed0.5 m/s < And <30 m/s Barometric Pressure900 mb < And < 1060 mb Solar Radiation0 KW/m2 < And < 1.5 KW/m2 Quantum Radiation0 µE/m 2 /s < And < 2700 µE/m 2 /s Precipitation0 mm/min < And <3 mm/min Relative Humidity0% < And < 100% Hydrographic Data Water Temperature-5 ° C < And < 45 ° C Water LevelAt Dauphin Island Station: -3.0 ft. < And < 5.0 ft. At Meaher Park Station: 1.0 ft. < And < 6.0 ft. At Middle Bay Light Station: 2.0 meters< And <6.0 meters Salinity0 ppt < And < 40 ppt Dissolved Oxygen Percent:0% < And < 200% Dissolved Oxygen mg/L0 mg/L < And < 20 mg/L Range Checking Criteria based on ranges established by NERR (by NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR).

7. Created the flag fields in the same data table. Range check logic was translated into SQL stored procedure. Runs every 30 minutes, 15 minutes after data are harvested. 1 minute meteorological data, 30 minute hydrographical data Quality Flag The quality of real-time data is described by an aggregate quality flag recommended by QARTOD I: -9 = missing value 0 = quality not evaluated 1 = bad 2 = questionable/suspect 3 = good Programming

8. SQL stored procedure that checks the range of meteorological parameters (scheduled to run every 30 minutes by SQL Server Agent) update a set precip1Flag = case when precip1*2.54 >3 then 2 when precip1 is null then -9 when precip1*2.54 <=3 then 3 end, airtemp1Flag= case when airtemp1 > 50 or airtemp1 <-10 then 2 when airtemp1 is null then -9 when airtemp1 >=-10 and airtemp1<= 50 then 3 end, solarrad1Flag= case when solarrad1 >1.5 or solarrad1 < 0 then 2 when solarrad1 is null then -9 when solarrad1 >=0 and solarrad1 <=1.5 then 3 end, quantumrad1Flag= case when quantumrad1 >2700 or quantumrad1 < 0 then 2 when quantumrad1 is null then -9 when quantumrad1 >=0 and quantumrad1 <=2700 then 3 end, winddir1Flag = case when winddir1 > 360 or winddir1 < 0 then 2 when winddir1 is null then -9 when winddir1 >=0 and winddir1 <=360 then 3 end, /*convert windspeed from knots to meter per second*/ windspeed1Flag= case when windspeed1/1.9438445 >30 then 2 when windspeed1 is null then -9 when windspeed1/1.9438445 <= 30 then 3 end, /*convert inches of Mercury to millibar*/ bar_pressure1Flag= case when bar_pressure1/0.02953007 >1060 or bar_pressure1/0.02953007 < 900 then 2 when bar_pressure1 is null then -9 when bar_pressure1/0.02953007 >=900 and bar_pressure1/0.02953007 <=1060 then 3 end from ['+@station+'_'+@Year+'_met_min] as a WHERE airtemp1Flag is null')

9. Implementation Search for data with flag value of 2 –suspicious data. Once data are flagged, another program checks all the flags, four times a day. It scans records that come in within the last six hours on the SQL server. If it finds any data with flag value of 2, it will send an email to the Data Manager and technical support personnel. Subject: Middle Baylight Station Data Out of Range From: lhu@disl.org“lhu@disl.org To: lhu@disl.org, mdardeau@disl.org, kweis@disl.org Middle Baylight Station Data Out of Range. Please click http://www.mobilebaynep.com/mondata/rangestatus.cfm?stationid=188 to see detail.http://www.mobilebaynep.com/mondata/rangestatus.cfm?stationid=188

11. The final decision on the quality of the data 1.Physical Processes. Example: strong winds may result in unusually low tides 2.Possible malfunction of instruments. Example: accumulation of fouling organisms on sensor will affect the reading of dissolved oxygen. 3.Biological Processes. Algea bloom may result in high dissolved oxygen reading. Update the flag, or add comments to the record Password protected website: http://www.mobilebaynep.com/mondata/login.cfm.

14. The Review process is captured. Metadata has been registered with National Coastal Data Development Center The data flags are available together with the data when web visitors download Data from the DISL website (http://www.mobilebaynep.com/mondata/dislcaimer.cfm)http://www.mobilebaynep.com/mondata/dislcaimer.cfm

16. Acknowledgement We want to thank Mike Dardeau, Holly Hebert, and technicians at the respective sites whose assistance made this report possible.