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Initial soil moisture retrievals from the METOP‐A Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT)
Author(s) -
Bartalis Zoltan,
Wagner Wolfgang,
Naeimi Vahid,
Hasenauer Stefan,
Scipal Klaus,
Bonekamp Hans,
Figa Julia,
Anderson Craig
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2007gl031088
Subject(s) - scatterometer , environmental science , hydrometeorology , water content , meteorology , remote sensing , weather prediction , atmospheric sciences , precipitation , geology , wind speed , geography , geotechnical engineering
This article presents first results of deriving relative surface soil moisture from the METOP‐A Advanced Scatterometer. Retrieval is based on a change detection approach which has originally been developed for the Active Microwave Instrument flown onboard the European satellites ERS‐1 and ERS‐2. Using model parameters derived from eight years of ERS scatterometer data, first global soil moisture maps have been produced from ASCAT data. The ASCAT data were distributed by EUMETSAT for validation purposes during the ASCAT product commissioning activities. Several recent cases of drought and excessive rainfall are clearly visible in the soil moisture data. The results confirm that seamless soil moisture time series can be expected from the series of two ERS and three METOP scatterometers, providing global coverage on decadal time scales (from 1991 to about 2021). Thereby, operational, near‐real‐time ASCAT soil moisture products will become available for weather prediction and hydrometeorological applications.