RFI are characterized by their location, average Brightness Temperature (BT), and persistence. Position of an RFI is obtained averaging all its localizations made within the validity period, which is specified at the top of each image. The color of each RFI is proportional to its averaged BT. As RFI BTs are the sum of the natural thermal noise and the artificial emission, BT lower than 300K are not represented. The maximum of the colorbar is fixed at 10000K in all images for consistency, but in many cases stronger RFI are present. The size of each point is proportional to RFI persistence in SMOS data, i.e. the number of times the RFI was detected. Because of SMOS polar orbit, RFIs at high latitudes tend to be bigger, since they are observed more often. (see also Soldo, Y., Cabot, F., Khazaal, A., Miernecki, M., Slominska, E., Fieuzal, R., & Kerr, Y. H. (2015). Localization of RFI sources for the SMOS mission: a means for assessing SMOS pointing performances. Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, IEEE Journal of, 8(2), 617-627.)
