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Aquarius Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) Ancillary Dataset V1.0

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

Aquarius ancillary Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) product used in ADPS mission processing contains monthly-averaged Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) data for ascending/descending passes as detected by the Aquarius radiometers and scatterometer. The data is available for ascending (northward) and descending (southward) passes of the satellite only and ascending/descending passes combined. The values stored in this product are the percentage of radiometer and scatterometer measurements identified as corrupted by interference by the RFI detection algorithms [1,2] within each data point, averaged over one month. An additional RFI flag [3] is used to identify locations where the measured brightness temperature over land exceeds the expected limits of surface emissivity. This flag is not used to remove samples from further processing, but, in generating the radiometer RFI data, 100% RFI is assigned to points where this flag is raised. This product can be used to reproduce the RFI maps available on the Aquarius website at University of Maine (https://aquarius.umaine.edu/cgi/gal_radiometer.htm for the radiometer, and https://aquarius.umaine.edu/cgi/gal_scatterometer.htm for the scatterometer), by plotting the variables Rad_RFI_percent_AscDes_AllBeams and Scat_RFI_percent_AscDes_AllBeams on the latitude/longitude grid. Additionally, the user can generate maps by using only a particular beam or only ascending passes, for example. All combinations of beams and ascending/descending passes are possible. This product contains information about RFI, but it is also relevant for the retrieved Sea Surface Salinity (SSS). Over the ocean, the RFI percentage in this product corresponds to the amount of raw measurements discarded due to RFI contamination before SSS retrieval. Therefore, maps of the RFI percentage can give the user an indication of where RFI is more likely to have affected the quality of SSS retrievals, for a particular month, or for a series of months.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026
Publisher NASA/JPL/AQUARIUS;NASA/JPL/PODAAC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/AQR00-RFI01
Data Last Modified 2026-04-06
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 0ec03685-dfab-4b73-b2f7-7a5698bdcc71
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90.0,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180.0,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180.0,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90.0}
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 83dd57360b0518bd46b9bf711be9045033ec53b6dae34101329f5cd279d6c546
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2011-09-01/2015-06-01

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