The NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission Status and Early Results

Abstract:

NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission was launched on January 31, 2015. SMAP provides high-resolution, frequent revisit global mapping of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state based on coincident L-band radiometer and L-band radar measurements. The primary science goal of SMAP is to provide new perspectives on how the three fundamental cycles of the Earth system, the water, energy and carbon cycles, are linked together over land. Soil moisture is the key variable that links the three cycles and makes their co-variations synchronous in time. Soil moisture products with varying resolution and coverage are produced from the radiometer alone, radar alone, radiometer-radar combination and data assimilation. In this session the status of the SMAP observatory and early results based on the science data products will be included. The science data acquisition began in May 2015 following several weeks of observatory and instrument commissioning. An intense calibration and validation period followed. Preliminary science products on instrument measurements, soil moisture, landscape frozen or thawed status, and net ecosystem exchange are available at publicly-accessible data archives. The presentation will include early and summary results on the validation of these products. The instrument measurements can also be used to map sea-ice coverage, ocean surface winds and sea surface salinity. Examples of these global retrievals are also presented.