Monitoring Global Surface Soil Moisture with the WindSat Polarimetric Microwave Radiometer

摘要

Soil moisture monitoring from space has been designated a very high science and operational priority by the DoD, NOAA, NASA, and the National Research Council Earth Science Decadal Survey. Soil moisture is also a linchpin environmental variable supporting Battlespace Environment assessment/ prediction and C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance). Despite the importance of soil moisture applications, current sensors and algorithms do not satisfy measurement requirements. Using data from the NRL WindSat sensor, we have developed a passive microwave land algorithm to retrieve soil moisture and vegetation water content globally from space. The validation results suggest that the algorithm can meet the requirements of 50 km resolution soil moisture mapping under low to moderate vegetation conditions.