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Title: Soil moisture retrieval from WindSat using the single channel algorithm toward a blended global soil moisture product from multiple microwave sensors

Author
item LIU, J - NOAA
item ZHAN, X - NOAA
item Jackson, Thomas

Submitted to: Proceedings of SPIE
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/8/2008
Publication Date: 12/15/2008
Citation: Liu, J., Zhan, X., Jackson, T.J. 2008. Soil moisture retrieval from WindSat using the single channel algorithm toward a blended global soil moisture product from multiple microwave sensors. In: Proceeding of the SPIE, 7085, Atmospheric and Environmental Remote Sensing Data Processing and Utilization IV: Readiness for GEOSS II, August 12-14, 2008, San Diego, California. p.I1-I8.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Soil moisture has long been recognized as one of the critical land surface initial conditions for numerical weather, climate hydrological predictions, particularly for transition zones between dry and humid climates. However, none of the currently existing soil moisture products has been used operationally in these models because of their consistency and reliability issues. A consistent and qualitatively reliable global soil moisture product is thus in desire to make good use of observations from different microwave sensors, such as AMSR-E, WindSat and TMI. This study explores the potential of WindSat data for producing such a product using the single channel algorithm (SCA) for soil moisture retrieval in conjunction with field observations for calibrating the algorithm and for validation. The preliminary results show good agreement between the results from WindSat and NASA AMSR-E product both in terms of spatial pattern and magnitude. The validation results show that the differences between the retrieved soil moisture from WindSat data and the ground measurements are below 0.05 (vol/vol) in most cases, meaning a great potential of WindSat data for producing a blended product. Further cross calibration between the brightness temperatures from different sensors might be needed for producing such a blended product.