The Soil Moisture Active Passive Experiments: Validation of the SMAP Products in Australia

Calibration and validation; Catchments; Luminance; Mean square error; Radar; Radiometers; Surface roughness; Temperature; Vegetation; Brightness temperatures; Microwave observations; Murrumbidgee River catchment; Operational phase; Root mean squared errors; Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS); Vegetation condition; Vegetation water content; Soil moisture; Australia; Aquarius

Abstract :

[en] The fourth and fifth Soil Moisture Active Passive Experiments (SMAPEx-4 and -5) were conducted at the beginning of the SMAP operational phase, May and September 2015, to: 1) evaluate the SMAP microwave observations and derived soil moisture (SM) products and 2) intercompare with the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Aquarius missions over the Murrumbidgee River Catchment in the southeast of Australia. Airborne radar and radiometer observations at the same microwave frequencies as SMAP were collected over SMAP footprints/grids concurrent with its overpass. In addition, intensive ground sampling of SM, vegetation water content, and surface roughness was carried out, primarily for validation of airborne SM retrieval over six sim 3,,text {km} times 3 km focus areas. In this study, the SMAPEx-4 and -5 data sets were used as independent reference for extensively evaluating the brightness temperature and SM products of SMAP, and intercompared with SMOS and Aquarius under a wide range of SM and vegetation conditions. Importantly, this is the only extensive airborne field campaign that collected data while the SMAP radar was still operational. The SMAP radar, radiometer, and derived SM showed a high agreement with the SMAPEx-4 and -5 data set, with a root-mean-squared error (RMSE) of 3 K for radiometer brightness temperature, and an RMSE of sim 0.05~text{m}^{3}/text{m}^{3} for the radiometer-only SM product. The SMAP radar backscatter had an RMSE of 3.4 dB, while the retrieved SM had an RMSE of 0.11 m3/m3 when compared with the SMAPEx-4 data set. © 1980-2012 IEEE.

Disciplines :

Environmental sciences & ecology
Earth sciences & physical geography

Author, co-author :

Ye, N.; Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

Walker, J. P.; Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

Wu, X.; Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

De Jeu, R.; Transmissivity B.V., Space Technology Center, DK Noordwijk, Netherlands

Gao, Y.; Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

Jackson, T. J.; USDA-ARS, Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Beltsville, MD, United States

Jonard, François ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de géographie > Systèmes d'information géographiques

Kim, E.; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States

Merlin, O.; CESBIO, Université de Toulouse, IRD/UPS/CNRS/CNES, Toulouse, France

Pauwels, V. R. N.; Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

More authors (6 more)

Language :

English

Title :

The Soil Moisture Active Passive Experiments: Validation of the SMAP Products in Australia

Publication date :

2021

Journal title :

IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing

ISSN :

0196-2892

eISSN :

1558-0644

Publisher :

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

2922-2939

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Available on ORBi :

since 21 September 2021

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