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In support of the European Space Agency Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, a number of soil moisture and sea salinity campaigns, including airborne L-band radiometer measurements, have been carried out. The radiometer used in this context is fully polarimetric and has built-in radio-frequency-interference (RFI)-detection capabilities. Thus, the instrument, in addition to supplying L-band data to the geophysicists, also gave valuable information about the RFI environment. Campaigns were carried out in Australia and in a variety of European locations, resulting in the largest and most comprehensive data set available for assessing RFI at L-band. This paper introduces the radiometer system and how it detects RFI using the kurtosis method, reports on the percentage of data that are typically flagged as being corrupted by RFI, and gives a hint about geographical distribution. Also, examples of polarimetric signatures are given, and the possibility of detecting RFI using such data is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet has become the most important medium for information exchange and the core communication environment for business relations as well as for social interactions. Every day millions of people all over the world use the Internet for a plethora of daily activities including searching, information access and exchange, multimedia communications enjoyment, buying and selling goods, and keeping in touch with family and friends, just to name a few. Statistics show (Fig. 1) that Internet usage has achieved a penetration of 77.4 percent in North America, 61.3 percent in Australia, 58.4 percent in Europe, and an average of 28.7 percent of the total worldwide population as of 2010 [1]. This corresponds to more than a fourfold increase (444 percent actually) over a period of 10 years. If we consider that Asia and Africa count together for more than 70 percent of the world?s population and have currently the lowest penetration rates with much room to grow as their economies also develop, there is no doubt that many more people will acquire Internet access over the next 10 years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]