Aquarius Satellite Radio Frequency Interference Monthly Averages

Monthly-averaged Radio Frequency Interference data from the Aquarius satellite mission's radiometers and scatterometer, processed by the ADPS mission team. The product contains percentages of measurements corrupted by RFI for ascending, descending, and combined satellite passes. This dataset was last updated in 2015 and originates from the POCLOUD organization.

Use Cases

• Reproduce RFI maps by plotting the Rad_RFI_percent_AscDes_AllBeams and Scat_RFI_percent_AscDes_AllBeams variables on the provided latitude/longitude grid.
• Analyze RFI contamination patterns for specific satellite beams or pass directions (ascending/descending) to isolate sources of interference.
• Assess potential impact on Sea Surface Salinity retrieval quality by correlating ocean RFI percentage maps with SSS data for specific months.
• Identify land areas with anomalous brightness temperatures using the ancillary RFI flag that assigns 100% RFI to flagged locations.

Strengths

• Data provides dual-sensor RFI detection from both radiometers and a scatterometer.
• Includes separate and combined metrics for ascending and descending satellite passes.
• Designed to enable reproduction of official mission RFI maps from the Aquarius website.

Limitations

• Dataset temporal coverage ends in 2015, limiting analysis of recent RFI trends.
• Specific row count, column details, and sample size are not provided.
• Geographic and temporal resolution is limited to monthly averages on a grid.

Provenance

Source

POCLOUD, from the Aquarius satellite mission ADPS processing.

Collection Method

Derived from RFI detection algorithms applied to Aquarius radiometer and scatterometer measurements, averaged monthly.

Time Range

Monthly data, specific start date unknown; last update was 2015-06-01.

Freshness

Last updated in 2015.

Geography

Global coverage from satellite passes.