Validation of satellite microwave retrieved soil moisture with global ground-based measurements

Amen Al-Yaari (1) , Arnaud Mialon (2) , W. Dorigo (3) , Andreas Colliander (4) , Lei Fan (1) , Yann H. Kerr (2) , Thierry Pellarin (5) , Jean-Pierre Wigneron (1)

1 UMR ISPA - Interactions Sol Plante Atmosphère
2 CESBIO - Centre d'études spatiales de la biosphère
3 Vienna University of Technology
4 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
5 UGA [2016-2019] - Université Grenoble Alpes [2016-2019]

Soil moisture retrieval from microwave remote sensing brightness temperatures is in continuous development. In this study, the most recent and latest microwave remote sensing soil moisture products were evaluated against ground-based measurements. We compared, for the first time, the latest versions of SMOS (L2V650 and SMOS-IC V105), SMAP (L3V4), and CCI (V03.2) soil moisture products with respect to ground-based measurements obtained from ISMN (International Soil Moisture Network). Time series were plotted over some sites and it was found that all these products capture well the temporal dynamics over all the sites used in this study. However, CCI was wetter than the in situ measurements over Niger and both SMOS products (IC and L2) and SMAP were drier than the in situ observations over Biebrza site in Poland.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Sciences de l'environnement

Amen Al-Yaari, Arnaud Mialon, W. Dorigo, Andreas Colliander, Lei Fan, et al.. Validation of satellite microwave retrieved soil moisture with global ground-based measurements. IEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), Jul 2018, Valencia, Spain. ⟨10.1109/IGARSS.2018.8517557⟩. ⟨hal-02737058⟩