The AirMOSS Level 4 Root-Zone Soil Moisture Product

Abstract:

A critical aspect of the AirMOSS mission is the temporal interpolation of (temporally-discrete) AirMOSS Level 2/3 root-zone soil moisture retrievals into a continuous, hourly root-zone soil moisture product. This is achieved via the assimilation of AirMOSS Level 2/3 root-zone soil moisture retrievals into continuous three-dimensional hydrologic modeling of AirMOSS study sites using the Penn State Integrated Hydrologic (PIHM) model.

In this presentation, we will describe the results of a comparison analysis between: 1) hourly PIHM profile soil moisture predictions, 2) AirMOSS Level 2/3 root-zone soil moisture retrievals, and 3) and profile soil moisture observations obtained via ground-based instrumentation at multiple AirMOSS study sites. Since any reasonably-sophisticated integration of remotely-sensed and modeled root-zone soil moisture estimates requires information regarding the objective accuracy of each, the results of this analysis will be used to parameterize a data assimilation approach for integrating discrete AirMOSS Level 2/3 products into a continuous integration of the PIHM model. Based on this integration approach, preliminary AirMOSS Level 4 root-zone soil moisture products will be presented and evaluated. Results will highlight the relative limitations of both the AirMOSS Level 2/3 retrievals and PIHM-based estimates and therefore justify the integrated use of both soil moisture products to create an optimized Level 4 root-zone soil moisture analysis.