A Unified Approach to HF Radar Radial Quality Control for Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems

There are seven planned CODAR SeaSonde High Frequency radar (HFR) sites to observe surface currents in the Straits of Florida, northern Gulf of Mexico, and Straits of Yucatan as part of the Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems (UGOS) project. UGOS is a project funded by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to study Loop Current dynamics in the Gulf of Mexico. A unified approach to delayed-mode quality control of radial data is developed and implemented. The first two steps involving reviewing radial distributions and diagnostics and identify any time periods that may require special attention. The third step is to plot all Doppler spectra and ensure that the first-order Bragg are identified by the first order line settings and any interference is filtered out or noted as suspect. The fourth step is to recalculate the radial currents from the Doppler spectra with the best available measured antenna patterns and first order line settings to produce the best radial current vectors based on the preceding steps. The fifth step is to apply the full suite of Quality Assurance/Quality Control of Real-Time Oceanographic Data (QARTOD) radial tests to the reprocessed radials. Finally, the post-processed radial currents are compared to the original radial files produced at the remote site.