Rain flag field for QSCAT retrievals

[milliff]

Please include the rain flag field for QSCAT retrievals in HITIDE. If I understand correctly, right now the available fields through HITIDE are location data (lat, lon, time) and wind speed and wind direction fields. I would appreciate having the corresponding rain flag fields as well. There are instances (particularly in the tropics) when moderate rain does not obscure accurate vector wind retrieval. Thanks.

[dmoroni]

Thank you for that inquiry. So just to clarify, HiTIDE serves 2 primary functions. One is to visualize (in a quick preview sense) the Level 2 data on a map, and the other is to subset the data. For the visual preview, we only provide layers that make the most intuitive sense to visualize. Due to the complexity of quality flags for many Level 2 datasets, we made a decision to not expose quality flags as part of the visualization preview step for most of our Level 2 datasets, which includes QuikSCAT. However, when it comes to the subset and extraction portion of the HiTIDE service, all data variables that are native to the original Level 2 files are retained and made available in the final extraction. Using the QuikSCAT Level 2B Version 4.1 dataset as an example, below is a screenshot to illustrate that the quality flag variables, including the rain_impact variable, are available for final extraction.

Screenshot depicting QuikSCAT Level 2 variables available for HiTIDE extraction.

Screen Shot 2021-05-20 at 3.12.22 PM.png (37.28 KiB) Viewed 8742 times

Once again, we appreciate your feedback, and if there's anything else we can do to provide assistance, please let us know.

Respectfully,
David

[milliff]

Hi David

Thanks for your prompt reply to my request for access to the rain flag fields in QSCAT L2B v4.1 retrievals. Unfortunately, I was not permitted to view the .png file you included as part of your response; something about "insufficient permissions". Is it worth another try? I hope so!

Thanks again,
Ralph Milliff