SMOS soil moisture algorithm: retrieval accuracy and intercomparison with other sensors

• Main Authors: Kerr, Yann H., Ahmad, Al Bitar, Al-Yaari, A., Bindlish, Rajat, Escorihuela, Maria-José, Jackson, Thomas, Leroux, Delphine, Munoz-Sabater, Joaquin, Richaume, Philippe, Pellarin, Thierry, Rüdiger, Christoph, Wigneron, Jean-Pierre
• Other Authors: Centre d'études spatiales de la biosphère (CESBIO), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France -Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France -Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, USDA Agricultural Research Service Beltsville, Maryland, USDA-ARS : Agricultural Research Service-USDA-ARS : Agricultural Research Service, isardSAT, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Laboratoire d'étude des transferts en hydrologie et environnement (LTHE), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (OSUG), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Monash University, Interactions Sol Plante Atmosphère (UMR ISPA), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences Agronomiques de Bordeaux-Aquitaine (Bordeaux Sciences Agro)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; [SPI.SIGNAL]Engineering Sciences [physics]/Signal and Image processing; [SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences; National Snow and Ice Data Center
• Online Access: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02800372

International audience The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission was launched by European Space Agency (ESA) in November 2009 to measure soil moisture and ocean surface salinity. SMOS is a synthetic aperture L-band radiometer and provides global coverage in 3 days. The level 2 soil moisture products are distributed by ESA’s DPGS (European Space Agency’s Data Processing Ground Segment) for each half orbit since January 2010. The Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) has developed the CATDS (Centre Aval de Traitement des Donnees SMOS) ground segment that now provides spatial and temporal synthesis products (referred to as Level 3 products) of soil moisture, ocean salinity and brightness temperatures at multiple incidence angles over the entire operational of SMOS. The AMSR –E sensor on board NASA’s AQUA satellite and its successor, JAXA’s AMSR-2, has been providing soil moisture estimates since 2002 either through the NASA DAAC at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) or through the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. Similarly, the ERS-1 and -2 scatterometers, followed by ASCAT on board METOP have been delivering soil wetness indices through the Eumetsat H-SAF project with a very long climatological record since 1991. Also available now the new Aquarius SM retrievals which are now available and will soon be distributed through NSIDC. The goal of this presentation is three folds: 1 - provide an estimate of the SMOS retrieval accuracy using a large set of ground data 2 - intercompare the different products to assess the pros and cons of each mission and their relative merits as a function of land cover, season etc. 3 - establish how one could build up a long term environmental data record of soil moisture from these data sets in order to study the impact of climate change on the global water cycle.