Metadata
Information about meteorological and climatological data concerning how and when they were measured, their quality, known problems and other characteristics.
Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.
All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.