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Project

Estimation of Soil Moisture at Multiple Temporal Scales 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 can be reasonable captured by various sensors and advanced model simulations, but climatological estimates of absolute soil moisture values at the field scale or larger scales are not existent. The objectives of this project are to merge land surface simulations with microwave observations from the ESA Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission to (i) estimate the climatological distribution of soil moisture in absolute terms, along with radiative transfer parameters, to (ii) further a data assimilation framework to obtain downscaled soil moisture with reduced persistent and random errors, and to (iii) improve off-line soil moisture retrievals. The improved soil moisture time series will enhance subsequent prediction of flooding, landslides, soil and vegetation carbon, deep er ground water and the atmospheric boundary layer.
Date:1 Oct 2016 →  30 Sep 2020
Keywords:Earth observation, data assimilation, soil moisture
Disciplines:Physical geography and environmental geoscience, Applied mathematics in specific fields, Geophysics, Other earth sciences, Aquatic sciences, challenges and pollution, Geomatic engineering