Comments on “A Statistical Determination of the Random Observational Errors Present in Voluntary Observing Ships’ Meteorological Reports”

Abstract

The accuracy achievable for surface ship pressure reports and the sources of error in them are discussed. In The Met Office numerical weather prediction (NWP) system the error is estimated as 1 hPa, whereas Kent et al. calculated a figure of about 2.3 hPa. There are a number of reasons for this discrepancy, but the main one is that quality control using short-range forecasts is much better at detecting gross errors in the reports than are climatological checks. Statistics from the Met Office NWP system are presented for comparison of pressure and other atmospheric variables. Other variables show much less discrepancy than pressure because, relative to observation error, they have a smaller climatological range. Both sets of statistics show larger air temperature errors at high latitudes/low temperatures.