Ocean and Polar Research ISSN:2234-7313(Online) Ocean and Polar Research

Quality control (QC) to process observed time series has become more critical as the types and amount of observed data have increased along with the development of ocean observing sensors and communication technology. International ocean observing institutions have developed and operated automatic QC procedures for these observed time series. In this study, the performance of automated QC procedures proposed by U.S. IOOS (Integrated Ocean Observing System), NDBC (National Data Buy Center), and OOI (Ocean Observatory Initiative) were evaluated for observed time-series particularly from the Yellow and East China Seas by taking advantage of a confusion matrix. We focused on detecting additive outliers (AO) and temporary change outliers (TCO) based on ocean temperature observation from the Ieodo Ocean Research Station (I-ORS) in 2013. Our results present that the IOOS variability check procedure tends to classify normal data as AO or TCO. The NDBC variability check tracks outliers well but also tends to classify a lot of normal data as abnormal, particularly in the case of rapidly fluctuating time-series. The OOI procedure seems to detect the AO and TCO most effectively and the rate of classifying normal data as abnormal is also the lowest among the international checks. However, all three checks need additional scrutiny because they often fail to classify outliers when intermittent observations are performed or as a result of systematic errors, as well as tending to classify normal data as outliers in the case where there is abrupt change in the observed data due to a sensor being located within a sharp boundary between two water masses, which is a common feature in shallow water observations. Therefore, this study underlines the necessity of developing a new QC algorithm for time-series occurring in a shallow sea.