Minimum Quality Control software

Minimum Quality Control (MQC) software

The Expert Team on Marine Climatology requested that the Global Collecting Centres (GCC) provide a piece of software to process observations from Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS) within the Minimum Quality Control (MQC) guidelines set out by JCOMM. This followed several requests from Contributing Members (CMs) who operate VOS under the Marine Climatology Summary Scheme (MCSS).

The current 5th version of this software is now available (here) and can be ordered directly from the GCCs or the WMO, free of charge. The GCCs are responsible for any necessary upgrades to the software.

The 5th version includes quality control of VOSClim elements and flags and where possible provides information and guidance for the correction of the original data in line with the Minimum Quality Control Standards (MQCS-7). It provides new checks of "Cloud height and visibility measuring indicator" (element 9), for versions of IMMT and FM code (element 64 and 65) and revised checks for the VOSClim attachments HDG (element 87) and SLL (element 90).

By using this 5th version of the software, the MQCS-version indicator (element 86) is set to 7 and the reported IMMT versions 1 - 3 (element 65) are set to IMMT-version "3" automatically (due to the insertion of VOSClim-flags).  However, for checking data in IMMT-4 or -5 format element 65 remains "4" or "5". This procedure successfully allows for the different meanings of elements 40 and 41 in both IMMT-3 and IMMT-4/5.

This package provides the source code only, which is written in FORTRAN 90 under the ANSI standard. The implementation under the local operating system is left to the user, as computer environments are different the world over.

This procedure provides the potential to significantly increase data quality, as any data correction is best done close to data source with the CM.  Corrected data may be run through the program as often as needed for an acceptable outcome. The final output from this process should serve as the input contribution to the GCCs.

Download version 5 of MQC (zip file)

Note: Previous versions 3 and 4 of the MQC software are available here : v3, v4.