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Project

Estimation of 'True' Soil Moisture using Satellite-Based Microwave Observations from SMOS and SMAP

Soil moisture is a key variable in the water, energy and carbon cycle over land. Relative variations in soil moisture have been well captured by various sensors and model simulations, but estimates of the climatology –or long-term signature- of ‘true’ soil moisture in absolute values (volumetric water contents) at the field scale or any larger scale are not existent. Various satellite retrieval products of the same satellite mission have very different soil moisture climatologies, different land surface models produce different soil moisture estimates, and, by design, all soil moisture data assimilation products (merger of observations and simulations) are generated for a given model climatology, which may or may not be close to the truth.

Valuable and unexplored information is embedded in the history of L-band measurements from the recent SMOS and SMAP satellite missions, the first missions specifically designed to monitor soil moisture. The combination of long time series of SMOS and SMAP brightness temperature observations with qualitative land surface modeling in an advanced Bayesian framework will enable (i) the creation of an unprecedented global reference database of the `true’ climatological characteristics of coarse-scale surface soil moisture in absolute terms, and (ii) the improvement of both the long- and short-term characteristics of coarse- and fine-scale surface and root-zone soil moisture estimates through data assimilation.

Date:1 Jan 2017 →  31 Dec 2019
Keywords:Soil Moisture, Satellite-Based Microwave Observations, SMOS, SMAP
Disciplines:Soil sciences, challenges and pollution, Agriculture, land and farm management