COMPARISON OF THREE ALGORITHMS FOR THE RETRIEVAL OF SOIL MOISTURE FROM ASCAT DATA IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE ROUND ROBIN EXERCISE

摘要

Three algorithms for the retrieval of soil moisture content (SMC) from MetOp-ASCAT acquisitions have been developed and compared. This activity has been carried out in the framework of the ASCAT Round Robin exercise that was supported by ESA as a part of the Climate Change Initiative Phase 1 Soil Moisture Project. The algorithms have been developed and tested using the ASCAT Round Robin data package (ASCAT - RRDP) that was distributed among the partners of the project for developing and validating the algorithms and that was composed by a selection of 150 test sites derived from the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) was used. The locations of the in situ soil moisture measurements used for the Round Robin represent a wide range of climate conditions, covering a wide variety of vegetation types and vegetation density classes.