Publication Date:
2019-07-13
Description:
The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission Level-4 Surface and Root-Zone Soil Moisture (L4_SM) data product is generated by assimilating SMAP L-band brightness temperature observations into the NASA Catchment land surface model. The L4_SM product is available from 31 March 2015 to present (within 3 days from real-time) and provides 3-hourly, global, 9-km resolution estimates of surface (0-5 cm) and root-zone (0-100 cm) soil moisture and land surface conditions. This study presents an overview of the L4_SM algorithm, validation approach and product assessment versus in situ measurements. Core validation sites provide spatially averaged surface (root-zone) soil moisture measurements for 43 (17) reference pixels at 9-km and 36-km grid-cell scales located in 17 (7) distinct watersheds. Sparse networks provide point-scale measurements of surface (root-zone) soil moisture at 401 (297) locations. Core validation site results indicate that the L4_SM product meets its soil moisture accuracy requirement, specified as an unbiased RMSE (ubRMSE, or standard deviation of the error) of 0.04 cu m/cu m or better. The ubRMSE for L4_SM surface (root-zone) soil moisture is 0.038 cu m/cu m (0.028 cu m/cu m) at the 9-km scale and 0.034 cu m/cu m (0.024 cu m/cu m) at the 36-km scale. The L4_SM estimates improve (significantly at the 5 level for surface soil moisture) over model-only estimates, which have a 9-km surface (root-zone) ubRMSE of 0.043 cu m/cu m (0.031 cu m/cu m) and do not benefit from the assimilation of SMAP brightness temperature observations. Time series correlations exhibit similar relative performance. The sparse network results corroborate these findings over a greater variety of climate and land cover conditions.
Keywords:
Earth Resources and Remote Sensing
Type:
GSFC-E-DAA-TN45148
,
Journal of Hydrometeorology (ISSN 1525-755X) (e-ISSN 1525-7541); 18; 10; 2621-2645
Format:
application/pdf
Permalink
