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A Long-Term Consistent Multi-Satellite Soil Moisture Data Record

Principal Investigator: Dr. Steven K. Chan (steven.k.chan@jpl.nasa.gov)

This NASA MEaSUREs investigation focuses on the development of a long-term soil moisture data record based on decades of passive microwave observations acquired by spaceborne radiometers. Many of these radiometers operate at multiple frequency bands, but two particular frequency bands -- X-band (10.7 GHz) and L-band (1.4 GHz) -- form the majority of passive microwave observations that are suitable for soil moisture estimation. In this investigation, we will therefore focus on soil moisture estimation based on brightness temperature (TB) observations of these two frequency bands. These observations are available from the following radiometers.

  • Radiometers with X-band (10.7 GHz) TB observations: TMI on NASA TRMM, AMSR-E on NASA Aqua, AMSR2 on JAXA GCOM-W, and GMI on NASA GPM.
  • Radiometers with L-band (1.4 GHz) TB observations: SMOS and SMAP

Our development proceeds in two phases. The production of L-band soil moisture estimates will be completed by summer 2022, that of X-band soil moisture estimates six months later.

This work is supported by the NASA MEaSUREs (Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments) Program.