Inversion of Surface Soil Moisture from Radar Altimetry Backscattering in Semi-Arid Environments

Fabien Blarel (1) , Frédéric Frappart (1) , Éric Mougin (2) , Catherine Ottle (3, 4) , Manuela Grippa (2) , Guillaume Ramillien (1) , Nina Raoult

1 LEGOS - Laboratoire d'études en Géophysique et océanographie spatiales
2 GET - Géosciences Environnement Toulouse
3 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
4 MOSAIC - Modélisation des Surfaces et Interfaces Continentales

Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) is a key parameter of water and energy balances in semi-arid areas. SSM is linearly related to the radar backscattering coefficients (σ0) over sand. Linear relationships are commonly used for inverting SSM in semi-arid areas from SAR and scatterometer data. Recent studies demonstrated that SSM can also be inversed from radar altimetry backscattering. An inversion method combining radar altimetry σ0 and land surface model (LSM) outputs is proposed here.

Mots clés: Soil moisture; backscattering; radar altimetry

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]; Interfaces continentales, environnement

Fabien Blarel, Frédéric Frappart, Éric Mougin, Catherine Ottle, Manuela Grippa, et al.. Inversion of Surface Soil Moisture from Radar Altimetry Backscattering in Semi-Arid Environments. IGARSS 2018 - 2018 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Jul 2018, Valencia, Spain. IEEE, pp.9110-9113, 2018, ⟨10.1109/IGARSS.2018.8518637⟩. ⟨hal-02389678⟩