Real-time quality control of current velocity data on individual grid cells in WERA HF radar

• Main Authors: Gomez, Roberto, Helzel, Thomas, Petersen, Leif, Kniephoff, Matthias, Merz, Clifford R., Yonggang Liu, Weisberg, Robert H.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Current measurement; currents; Digital filters; ocean radar; Oceans; quality control; Radar; remote sensing; Sea measurements; Time measurement
• DOI: 10.1109/OCEANS-TAIPEI.2014.6964502

Ocean surface current data provided by shore-based High Frequency (HF) radar show sporadically non-realistic current vectors in some areas, particularly at the outer edges of the radar range. The present paper describes a quality control (QC) procedure which evaluates the data of an array-type HF radar system in near realtime and assigns a quality value on every single grid-cell measurement. The quality value can then be used to identify non-realistic measurements and remove them from the obtained current maps. This procedure was implemented on a pair of coastal radar systems of the University of South Florida during a measuring period of 9 months. It was observed that the method is very effective in removing occasional non-realistic measurements. In general, the WERA QC procedure has to be tuned to the specific local conditions of the system for optimal results and to have the right trade-off between correct outlier identification and false alarm rate according to the user requirements.