Sea Surface Salinity Retrievals from Aquarius Using Neural Networks

Even though the Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) retrieved from Aquarius are generally very close to in-situ measurements, the level of similarity varies with the region and with the circumstances of the observations (wind speed, sea surface temperature, etc.). SSS is currently retrieved from the brightness temperatures measured by Aquarius and applying the current theoretical model for the propagation and emission of the natural thermal radiation. In this contribution we consider an alternative retrieval approach based on a Neural Network (NN) with the goal of improving the subsets of Aquarius SSS data that are in poorer agreement within-situ measurements. The subset considered here are the SSS retrieved at latitudes higher than 30 . The output of the NN approach are compared against in-situ measurements using four statistical metrics (correlation coefficient, bias, RMSD and 5% trimmed range). The output of the NN and the nominal Aquarius SSS are compared against SSS values from in-situ measurements and from ocean models. From these comparisons it appears that the output of the NN matches the in-situ measurements better than the nominal Aquarius SSS

Optimisation de la reconstruction d'image pour SMOS et SMOS-NEXT

Dans le cadre général de l'étude du climat, du cycle de l'eau et de la gestion des ressources en eau, le satellite SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) a été lancé par l'agence spatiale européenne (ESA) en Novembre 2009 pour fournir des cartes globales d'humidité des sols et de salinité des surfaces océaniques. Les mesures du satellite sont obtenues par un radiomètre interférométrique opérant dans la bande passive 1400-1427 MHz (bande L des micro-ondes). Toutefois, dès les premières mesures de l'instrument, de nombreuses Interférences en Radio Fréquence (RFI) ont été observées, malgré les recommandations de l'Union Internationale des Télécommunications (ITU) qui protègent cette bande pour les applications scientifiques. La dégradation de données à cause des interférences est significative et au niveau international des efforts sont fait par l'ESA et les différentes agences nationales pour l'identification et l'extinction de ces émetteurs. D'un point de vue scientifique l'intérêt porte sur le développement de techniques pour la détection, la localisation au sol des sources d'interférences ainsi que pour la correction de leurs signaux dans les donnés SMOS ; différents objectifs ont donc été poursuivis et ont mené à la définition de différents approches présentées dans cette contribution. En effet la solution idéale serait de corriger l'impact de ces interférences sur les données, en créant synthétiquement des signaux égaux et de signe opposé et d'en tenir compte dans la chaîne de traitement des données. Un outil a donc été développé qui, en utilisant des connaissances a priori sur la scène observée issues des modèles météorologiques, permet de simuler la scène vue par l'instrument. A partir de cette information et des visibilités entre les antennes de l'interféromètre, il est possible de détecter et de décrire précisément ces interférences et donc d'en déduire le signal à soustraire. Bien que l'évaluation des performances d'un algorithme de correction des RFI pour SMOS ne soit pas facile puisqu'elle doit être faite indirectement, des méthodes avec ce but sont proposées et montrent des résultats généralement positifs pour l'algorithme développé. Cependant la difficulté d'évaluer l'impact de la correction à grande échelle, ainsi que pour l'incertitude qui est nécessairement introduite lors de l'application d'un signal synthétique aux données et afin d'éviter une utilisation naïve des résultats de correction, aujourd'hui on écarte l'hypothèse d'une application opérationnelle d'un algorithme de correction. Un produit intermédiaire a alors été développé, par une approche similaire, avec l'objectif de fournir des indications sur l'impact des RFI sur chaque point de chaque image selon des seuils prédéfinis. Un autre objectif a été de fournir un outil en mesure de caractériser rapidement les sources (position au sol, puissance, position dans le champ de vue) pour une zone géographique. Cette méthode utilise les composantes de Fourier de la scène vue par l'instrument pour obtenir une distribution de températures de brillance, dans laquelle les RFI apparaissent comme des points chauds. L'algorithme rapide de caractérisation des sources s'est révélé précis, fiable et robuste, et il pourrait être utilisé pour la définition de bases de données sur les RFI ou pour le suivi de celles-ci à l'échelle locale ou globale. Les résultats de cette méthode ont fournit un jeu de données privilégié pour l'étude des performances de l'instrument et ça a permit de mettre en évidence des potentielles erreurs systématiques ainsi que des variations saisonnières des résultats. Toutes mission spatiale ayant une vie limitée à quelques années, dans un deuxième temps on s'est intéressé à la continuité des mesures des mêmes variables géophysiques, avec le projet de mission SMOS-NEXT. Pour améliorer la qualité des mesures cette mission se propose d'implémenter une technique d'interférométrie novatrice : la synthèse d'ouverture spatio-temporelle, dont le principe est de corréler les mesures entre antennes en positions différentes et à des instants différents, dans les limites de cohérence liées à la bande spectrale. Suite à des études théoriques, une expérience a été faite en utilisant le radiotélescope de Nançay. Dans le cadre de la thèse les données de cette expérience ont été analysées. Bien que l'étude n'ait pas permit de conclure sur la validité du principe, plusieurs difficultés ont été mises en évidence et ce retour d'expérience sera utile lors de la prochaine campagne de mesure prévue.The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in November 2009 to allow a better understanding of Earth's climate, the water cycle and the availability of water resources at the global scale, by providing global maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity. SMOS' payload, an interferometric radiometer, measures Earth's natural radiation in the protected 1400-1427 MHz band (microwave, L-band). However, since launch the presence of numerous Radio-Frequency Interferences (RFI) has been clearly observed, despite the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recommendations to preserve this band for scientific use. The pollution created by these artificial signals leads to a significant loss of data and a common effort of ESA and the national authorities is necessary in order to identify and switch off the emitters. From a scientific point of view we focus on the development of algorithms for the detection of RFI, their localization on the ground and the mitigation of the signals they introduce to the SMOS data. These objectives have led to different approaches that are proposed in this contribution. The ideal solution would consist in mitigating the interference signals by creating synthetic signals corresponding to the interferences and subtract them from the actual measurements. For this purpose, an algorithm was developed which makes use of a priori information on the natural scene provided by meteorological models. Accounting for this information, it is possible to retrieve an accurate description of the RFI from the visibilities between antennas, and therefore create the corresponding signal. Even though assessing the performances of a mitigation algorithm for SMOS is not straightforward as it has to be done indirectly, different methods are proposed and they all show a general improvement of the data for this particular algorithm. Nevertheless due to the complexity of assessing the performances at the global scale, and the uncertainty inevitably introduced along with the synthetic signal, and to avoid a naive use of the mitigated data by the end user, for the time being an operational implementation of mitigation algorithms is not foreseen. Instead, an intermediate solution is proposed which consists of estimating the RFI contamination for a given snapshot, and then creating a map of the regions that are contaminated to less than a certain (or several) threshold(s). Another goal has been to allow the characterization of RFI (location on the ground, power emitted, position in the field of view) within a specified geographic zone in a short time. This approach uses the Fourier components of the observed scene to evaluate the brightness temperature spatial distribution in which the RFIs are represented as "hot spots". This algorithm has proven reliable, robust and precise, so that it can be used for the creation of RFI databases and monitoring of the RFI contamination at the local and global scale. Such databases were in fact created and used to highlight systematic errors of the instrument and seasonal variation of the localization results. The second main research topic has been to investigate the principle of SMOS-NEXT, a prospective mission that aims at assuring the continuity of space-borne soil moisture and ocean salinity measurements in the future with significantly improved spatial resolution of the retrievals. In order to achieve the latter this project intends to implement a groundbreaking interferometric approach called the spatio-temporal aperture synthesis. This technique consists in correlating the signals received at antennas in different places at different times, within the coherence limits imposed by the bandwidth. To prove the feasibility of this technique, a measurement campaign was carried out at the radio-telescope in Nançay, France. Even though the analysis of the experimental data has not allowed concluding on the validity of the measurement principle, a series of difficulties have been highlighted and the thus gained knowledge constitutes a valuable base for the foreseen second measurement campaign

Localization of L-Band RFI Sources from SMAP Data

RFI (Radio-Frequency Interference) in the 1400-1427 MHz band degrades the quality of measurements made by satellite missions such as SMAP (Soil Moisture Active/Passive), Aquarius and SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity). A technique is presented here to estimate the location on the ground of RFI sources using SMAP measurements. The results of this technique have been validated against data derived by other means

L-Band RFI in Japan

In recent years, three instruments have been launched into orbit with the aim of producing global maps of sea surface salinity and soil moisture using the 1400-1427 MHz band: SMOS, Aquarius and SMAP. Although this frequency band is allocated to passive measurements only, RFI (Radio-Frequency Interference) is present in the data of all three missions. On a global scale, the three sensors have observed approximately the same distribution of RFI. Japan is an important exception that has implications for the design of RFI detection algorithms. RFI in Japan is caused by a large number of emitters belonging to the same system (TV receivers) and for this reason some traditional RFI detection strategies detect little to no RFI over Japan. The study of this case has led to an improvement of the approach to detect RFI in Aquarius data

Detection of Residual “Hot Spots” in RFI-Filtered SMAP Data

Radio frequency interference (RFI) is a well-documented problem for passive remote sensing of the Earth at L-band even though the measurements are made in the protected band at 1.413 GHz. Consequently, filtering for RFI is an important early step in the processing of measurements made by the SMAP (Soil Moisture Active/Passive) radiometer. However, the filtered data still include regions with suspiciously high antenna temperatures. One possible cause of these “hot spots” is interference not fully detected during RFI filtering. This paper presents evidence supporting this hypothesis and describes an algorithm to identify these “hot spots” so that they can be removed from the measurements. The impact of removing these “hot spots” is generally small, but evidence is presented that the brightness temperature and soil moisture improve when the hot spots are removed

L-band RFI Detected by SMOS and Aquarius

Ocean salinity and soil moisture are key parameters for understanding the global water cycle, weather, and climate. These parameters are being measured with spaceborne radiometers operating in the L-band window at 14001427 MHz. Although man-made activity in this band is prohibited, radio frequency interference (RFI) is still a problem over significant portions of the earth. This paper reports a comparison of the RFI environment in this window as observed by two L-band radiometer systems, Aquarius and Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity. The observed RFI environment depends on the sources and also on the characteristics of the instrument. Comparing the observations provides insight into the extent of the problem (actual sources), the influence of the instrument on the observation of RFI, and on potential ways of mitigating the effects. As this report shows, the global distribution of RFI is largely consistent between the two instruments, but the details, especially at low levels of RFI, depend on the characteristics of the instrument

Localization of RFI sources for the SMOS Mission: a means for assessing SMOS pointing performances

International audienceArtificial sources emitting in the protected part of the L-band are contaminating the retrievals of the soil moisture and ocean salinity (SMOS) satellite launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in November 2009. Detecting and pinpointing such sources is crucial for the improvement of SMOS science products as well as for the identification of the emitters. In this contribution, we present a method to obtain snapshot-wise information about sources of radio-frequency interference (RFI). The localization accuracy of this method is also assessed for observed RFI sources. We also show that RFI localizations constitute a useful data set for assessing the pointing performance of the satellite, and present how it is possible, using the results of this method, to identify and estimate two systematic errors in the geo-location of the satellite field of view. The potential causes and the approaches to mitigate both these errors are discussed

SMOS ESA RFI Monitoring and Information Tool: Lessons Learned

The issue of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is a widespread problem in most microwave Earth observation missions, and passive instruments are particularly sensitive to RFI. This is the case for SMOS, Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity, a satellite of the European Space Agency, which operates in the 1400–1427 MHz band, where all emissions are prohibited. Notwithstanding this regulatory framework, SMOS has been affected by RFI all around the world since the beginning of operations in 2010. In the first years of operations, manual detection processes and reporting of RFI to National Regulatory Authorities were in place in order to mitigate the detected sources. After 12 years, a tool called ERMIT (ESA RFI Monitoring and Information Tool) has been developed at ESAC (European Space Astronomy Center). This tool helps the SMOS RFI team in its spectrum monitoring tasks (e.g., RFI monitoring, logging, and reporting) thus allowing it to counteract RFI pollution more efficiently, providing external users with detailed and user-friendly information on the L-band RFI observed by SMOS. The ERMIT tool is now publicly available. This document aims at describing the needs that lead to the development of ERMIT and at presenting the information made available by it