0000000000061839
AUTHOR
Ahmad Al Bitar
Calibrating the effective scattering albedo in the SMOS algorithm: some first results
International audience; This study focuses on the calibration of the effective scattering albedo (ω) of vegetation in the soil moisture (SM) retrieval at L-Band. Currently, in the SMOS Level 2 and 3 algorithms, the value of ω is set to 0 for low vegetation and ∼ 0.06 – 0.08 for forests. Different parameterizations of vegetation (in terms of ω values) were tested in this study. The possibility of combining soil roughness and vegetation contributions as a single parameter (“combined” method) leads to an important simplification in the algorithm and was also evaluated here. Following these assumptions, retrieved values of SMOS SM were compared with SM data measured over many in situ sites worl…
Evaluation of the most recent reprocessed SMOS soil moisture products: Comparison between SMOS level 3 V246 and V272
International audience; Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite has been providing surface soil moisture (SSM) and ocean salinity (OS) retrievals at L-band for five years (2010–2014). During these five years, the SSM retrieval algorithm i.e. the L-MEB (L-Band Microwave Emission of the Biosphere [1] model has been progressively improved and hence results in different versions of the SMOS SSM products. This study aims at evaluating the last improvement in the SSM products of the most recent SMOS level 3 (SMOSL3) reprocessing (SMOSL3_2.72) vs. an earlier version (SMOSL3_246). Correlation, bias, Root Mean Square Difference (RMSD) and unbiased RMSD (unbRMSD) were used as perform…
SMOS-IC: An Alternative SMOS Soil Moisture and Vegetation Optical Depth Product
© 2017 by the authors. The main goal of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission over land surfaces is the production of global maps of soil moisture (SM) and vegetation optical depth (τ) based on multi-angular brightness temperature (TB) measurements at L-band. The operational SMOS Level 2 and Level 3 soil moisture algorithms account for different surface effects, such as vegetation opacity and soil roughness at 4 km resolution, in order to produce global retrievals of SM and τ. In this study, we present an alternative SMOS product that was developed by INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) and CESBIO (Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la BIOsphère). One of the main go…
First evaluation of the simultaneous SMOS and ELBARA-II observations in the Mediterranean region
Abstract The SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission was launched on November 2, 2009. Over the land surfaces, simultaneous retrievals of surface soil moisture (SM) and vegetation characteristics made from the multi-angular and dual polarization SMOS observations are now available from Level-2 (L2) products delivered by the European Space Agency (ESA). Therefore, first analyses evaluating the SMOS observations in terms of Brightness Temperatures (TB) and L2 products (SM and vegetation optical depth TAU) can be carried out over several calibration/validation (cal/val) sites selected by ESA over all continents. This study is based on SMOS observations and in situ measurements carried …
Comparison of SMOS and SMAP soil moisture retrieval approaches using tower-based radiometer data over a vineyard field
International audience; The objective of this study was to compare several approaches to soil moisture (SM) retrieval using l-band microwave radiometry. The comparison was based on a brightness temperature (TB) data set acquired since 2010 by the L-band radiometer ELBARA-II over a vineyard field at the Valencia Anchor Station (VAS) site. ELBARA-II, provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) within the scientific program of the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission, measures multiangular TB data at horizontal and vertical polarization for a range of incidence angles (30°–60°). Based on a three year data set (2010–2012), several SM retrieval approaches developed for spaceborne miss…
A new calibration of the effective scattering albedo and soil roughness parameters in the SMOS SM retrieval algorithm
Abstract This study focuses on the calibration of the effective vegetation scattering albedo (ω) and surface soil roughness parameters (H R , and N Rp , p = H,V) in the Soil Moisture (SM) retrieval from L-band passive microwave observations using the L-band Microwave Emission of the Biosphere (L-MEB) model. In the current Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) Level 2 (L2), v620, and Level 3 (L3), v300, SM retrieval algorithms, low vegetated areas are parameterized by ω = 0 and H R = 0.1, whereas values of ω = 0.06 − 0.08 and H R = 0.3 are used for forests. Several parameterizations of the vegetation and soil roughness parameters (ω, H R and N Rp , p = H,V) were tested in this study, tre…
SMOS-IC : a revised SMOS product based on a new effective scattering albedo and soil roughness parameterization
International audience; This study presents a new SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) soil moisture (SM) product based on a different scattering albedo and soil roughness parameterization: the SMOS-IC (SMOS INRA-CESBIO) data set. In this study, several parameterizations of the vegetation and soil roughness parameters (co, H-R and N-RP, P = H, V) were tested and the retrieved SM was compared against in situ observations obtained from the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN). Firstly, values of omega = 0.10, H-R = 0.4 and N-RP = -1 (P = H, V) were found globally. Secondly, a calibration of these parameters was obtained for the different land cover categories of the International Geo…
Comparison between SMOS Vegetation Optical Depth products and MODIS vegetation indices over crop zones of the USA
The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission provides multi-angular, dual-polarised brightness temperatures at 1.4 GHz, from which global soil moisture and vegetation optical depth (tau) products are retrieved. This paper presents a study of SMOS' tau product in 2010 and 2011 for crop zones of the USA. Retrieved tau values for 504 crop nodes were compared to optical/IR vegetation indices from the MODES (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite sensor, including the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVE), Leaf Area Index (LAI), and a Normalised Difference Water Index (NOW!) product. tau values were observed to increase during the…