Filtered HF Radar Surface Current Fields from CODAR DF System – Ligurian and N. Tyrrhenian Seas (Quality-Restricted Thresholds Applied)

This dataset provides hourly surface current velocity fields derived from a high-frequency (HF) radar network operating at 13.5 MHz, using a CODAR SeaSonde Direction Finding system. The network comprises three coastal radar stations located in Livorno (LIVO), San Vincenzo (SVIN), and Isola del Tino (TINO), offering broad spatial coverage over the Ligurian and Northern Tyrrhenian Seas. Radial current measurements are acquired on a polar grid with an approximate radial resolution of 1.5 km and an angular resolution of 5°. These radial components are merged into total surface current vectors through a least-squares combination method. The resulting velocity fields represent currents in the upper ~0.3 to 2.5 meters of the ocean surface and are averaged over 1-hour intervals centered on each full hour. To evaluate the impact of quality control parameters on data reliability and spatial coverage, the dataset provides multiple filtered versions of the radial current fields, processed using different threshold values for the VART_QC (temporal variance) and MDFL_QC (median) filters, ranging from 0.182 to 1 m/s. To ensure completeness, the release also includes a reference configuration based on the default threshold of 1 m/s for both filters, in alignment with the specifications recommended by the EuroGOOS HF Radar Task Team. In addition, the dataset contains the corresponding total surface current fields derived from radial measurements filtered using this default quality control configuration, also in accordance with EuroGOOS guidelines. All data are georeferenced using the WGS84 geographic coordinate system (EPSG:4326), spanning approximately 41.5°–44.5° N and 8.5°–12.5° E. The files are provided in NetCDF-4 classic format and comply with both CF-1.6 and Copernicus InSitu-TAC metadata conventions. The dataset represents a subset of HF radar observations collected during October and November 2020, a period selected for its temporal overlap with drifter deployments, making it particularly valuable for validation and modeling studies. The data are owned and provided by the LaMMA Consortium (Consorzio LaMMA). An extended version of the HF radar dataset is available at the following link:https://thredds.hfrnode.eu:8443/thredds/NRTcurrent/HFR-LaMMA/HFR-LaMMA_catalog.html(hosted on the European HF radar data-sharing server, part of the EuroGOOS HFR Task Team network).