Determine the causes of satellite precipitation retrieval artifacts

Determine the precise causes of the identified artifacts in Special Sensor Microwave Imager and Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder precipitation retrievals, including whether they arise from atmospheric or surface conditions, emissivity transitions, or mechanical instrument-operation failures.

Background

The paper identifies several artifact morphologies in precipitation fields generated from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS), but notes that the underlying physical or instrumental mechanisms producing them have not been established. Possible explanations include atmospheric ice layers, ice on ocean surfaces, transitions in surface emissivity, and mechanical problems during instrument operation.

Resolving the causes would require extensive independent verification beyond the automated detection framework developed in the paper. Establishing those causes would improve the physical interpretation of detected anomalies and could support more targeted quality-control procedures for passive-microwave precipitation products.

References

The specific causes of the artifacts presented in this research remain unidentified; they could be attributed to atmospheric and surface-type conditions, such as layers of ice in the atmosphere or on the ocean surface, or emissivity transitions between varying surface types, as well as to mechanical causes related to the instrument operation . Determining the precise cause of each artifact would require extensive independent verification and is beyond the scope of this work.

— A Sensor-Adaptive Incremental Learning Framework for Artifact Detection in Satellite Precipitation Data  (2609.01514 - Monsalve et al., 1 Sep 2026) in Section 1, Introduction