MERRA2 Data Lessons for next REANL

This is just a scratch place to put notes on obs as they are found in MERRA2.

• AMSU-A N19. The date of death in active channels database is 20091222 000000 for Channel 8. This isn't proper, however, as the channel is seemingly dead from the get-go of the Jan10 stream. Eventually, a true death date will need to be determined.

• RapidScat will come in at some point. Initial dev was w/ QuikSCAT slot but no code changes. NESDIS (Sid's team) passed developments to use the OSCAT slot. If OSCAT is considered in the future, both instruments will likely share the same slot. From my end (wm), the largest development was the implementation of a thinning mesh similar to ASCAT for RapidScat. This is probably ideal for QuikSCAT in the future no matter. I do not know offhand what thinning, if any, OSCAT used. It may also be worth considering thinning for ERS instruments.