H53M-08
SMAP Validation Experiment 2015 (SMAPVEX15)
Friday, 18 December 2015: 15:25
3011 (Moscone West)
Andreas Colliander1, Thomas J Jackson2, Michael H Cosh2, Sidharth Misra3, Wade T Crow2, Chun-Sik Chae1, Mahta Moghaddam4, Peggy E O'Neill5, Dara Entekhabi6 and Simon H Yueh1, (1)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)USDA ARS, Hydrology and Remote Sensing Lab, Beltsville, MD, United States, (3)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States, (4)University of Southern California, The Ming Hsieh Dept. of Electr. Eng., Los Angeles, CA, United States, (5)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (6)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cambridge, MA, United States
Abstract:
NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission was launched in January 2015. The objective of the mission is global mapping of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state. For soil moisture algorithm validation, the SMAP project and NASA coordinated SMAPVEX15 around the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) in Tombstone, Arizona on August 1-19, 2015. The main goals of SMAPVEX15 are to understand the effects and contribution of heterogeneity on the soil moisture retrievals, evaluate the impact of known RFI sources on retrieval, and analyze the brightness temperature product calibration and heterogeneity effects. Additionally, the campaign aims to contribute to the validation of GPM (Global Precipitation Mission) data products. The campaign will feature three airborne microwave instruments: PALS (Passive Active L-band System), UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar) and AirMOSS (Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface). PALS has L-band radiometer and radar, and UAVSAR and AirMOSS have L- and P-band synthetic aperture radars, respectively. The PALS instrument will map the area on seven days coincident with SMAP overpasses; UAVSAR and AirMOSS on four days. WGEW was selected as the experiment site due to the rainfall patterns in August and existing dense networks of precipitation gages and soil moisture sensors. An additional temporary network of approximately 80 soil moisture stations was deployed in the region. Rainfall observations were supplemented with two X-band mobile scanning radars, approximately 25 tipping bucket rain gauges, three laser disdrometers, and three vertically-profiling K-band radars. Teams were on the field to take soil moisture samples for gravimetric soil moisture, bulk density and rock fraction determination as well as to measure surface roughness and vegetation water content. In this talk we will present preliminary results from the experiment including comparisons between SMAP and PALS soil moisture retrievals with respect to the in situ measurements. Acknowledgement: This work was carried out in part at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under contract with National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
