Quality control procedures at the World Data Centre for Geomagnetism (Edinburgh)

Geomagnetism data holdings at the World Data Centre for Geomagnetism (Edinburgh) include observatory minute, hourly and annual mean values and global magnetic survey and repeat station data. Until 2007 the observatory minute and hourly mean value holdings were maintained by the Danish Meteorological Institute. We describe the quality control procedures developed at the British Geological Survey for application to new and legacy data. A number of issues raised for the legacy observatory hourly mean values result from formatting and typographical mistakes. The clearly obvious mistakes are being corrected in the WDC data that are made available at www.wdc.bgs.ac.uk. Whilst these quality control procedures have been mostly developed with the application of global modelling in mind, they will have benefits for all users of the data. Some examples of corrections are given.