Noise Floor and Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Radio Occultation Observations: A Cross-Mission Statistical Comparison
Multiple radio occultation (RO) missions are currently providing observations that are assimilated by the world’s leading numerical weather prediction centers. These RO missions use the same signals originating from the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), but they have different satellite de...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-02-01
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| Series: | Remote Sensing |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/3/691 |
| _version_ | 1827658944299925504 |
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| author | Michael Gorbunov Vladimir Irisov Christian Rocken |
| author_facet | Michael Gorbunov Vladimir Irisov Christian Rocken |
| author_sort | Michael Gorbunov |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Multiple radio occultation (RO) missions are currently providing observations that are assimilated by the world’s leading numerical weather prediction centers. These RO missions use the same signals originating from the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), but they have different satellite designs and sizes with different antennas and receivers. This results in different noise levels for different missions. Although the amplitude data are characterized by the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), the noise, to which they are normalized, is not the real Noise Floor (NF) of the RO observations. We study the statistical distributions of the SNR and NF for RO missions including COSMIC, COSMIC2, METOP-A, METOP-B, METOP-C, and Spire. We demonstrate that different missions have different NF values and different NF and SNR distributions, sometimes multimodal. We propose to use the most probable NF value as an SNR normalization constant in order to compare the SNR values from different RO missions. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:12:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5f02da40169c4d3da54d8b2ece235a06 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2072-4292 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:12:39Z |
| publishDate | 2022-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Remote Sensing |
| spelling | doaj.art-5f02da40169c4d3da54d8b2ece235a062023-11-23T17:41:57ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922022-02-0114369110.3390/rs14030691Noise Floor and Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Radio Occultation Observations: A Cross-Mission Statistical ComparisonMichael Gorbunov0Vladimir Irisov1Christian Rocken2A. M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pyzhevsky Per. 3, 119017 Moscow, RussiaSpire Global, Inc., 1690 38th Street, Boulder, CO 80301, USASpire Global, Inc., 1690 38th Street, Boulder, CO 80301, USAMultiple radio occultation (RO) missions are currently providing observations that are assimilated by the world’s leading numerical weather prediction centers. These RO missions use the same signals originating from the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), but they have different satellite designs and sizes with different antennas and receivers. This results in different noise levels for different missions. Although the amplitude data are characterized by the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), the noise, to which they are normalized, is not the real Noise Floor (NF) of the RO observations. We study the statistical distributions of the SNR and NF for RO missions including COSMIC, COSMIC2, METOP-A, METOP-B, METOP-C, and Spire. We demonstrate that different missions have different NF values and different NF and SNR distributions, sometimes multimodal. We propose to use the most probable NF value as an SNR normalization constant in order to compare the SNR values from different RO missions.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/3/691radio occultationsignal-to-noise rationoise floorCOSMICMETOPSpire |
| spellingShingle | Michael Gorbunov Vladimir Irisov Christian Rocken Noise Floor and Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Radio Occultation Observations: A Cross-Mission Statistical Comparison Remote Sensing radio occultation signal-to-noise ratio noise floor COSMIC METOP Spire |
| title | Noise Floor and Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Radio Occultation Observations: A Cross-Mission Statistical Comparison |
| title_full | Noise Floor and Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Radio Occultation Observations: A Cross-Mission Statistical Comparison |
| title_fullStr | Noise Floor and Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Radio Occultation Observations: A Cross-Mission Statistical Comparison |
| title_full_unstemmed | Noise Floor and Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Radio Occultation Observations: A Cross-Mission Statistical Comparison |
| title_short | Noise Floor and Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Radio Occultation Observations: A Cross-Mission Statistical Comparison |
| title_sort | noise floor and signal to noise ratio of radio occultation observations a cross mission statistical comparison |
| topic | radio occultation signal-to-noise ratio noise floor COSMIC METOP Spire |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/3/691 |
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