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Title: COMPARISON OF SOIL MOISTURE RETRIEVAL ALGORITHMUS USING SIMULATED HYDROS BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURES

Author
item O'NEILL, P - NASA
item Crow, Wade
item Hsu, Ann
item Jackson, Thomas
item NJOKU, E - NASA
item CHAN, T - NASA
item SHI, J - ICESS

Submitted to: International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/15/2004
Publication Date: 9/20/2004
Citation: O'Neill, P.E., Crow, W.T., Hsu, A.Y., Jackson, T.J., Njoku, E., Chan, T., Shi, J.C. 2004. Comparison of soil moisture retrieval algorithms using simulated Hydros brightness temperatures. In: Proceedings of the 2004 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing, September 20-24, 2004, Anchorage, Alaska. 1:336-339.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The HYDROS mission objective is to collect global scale measurements of the Earth's soil moisture and land surface freeze/thaw conditions, using a combined L band radiometer and radar system operating at 1.41 and 1.26 GHz, respectively. In order to examine how HYDROS soil moisture retrieval will be performed and how the retrieval accuracy will be impacted by vegetation water content and surface heterogeneity, an observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) was conducted using a modeled geophysical domain in the south-central United States centered on the Arkansas-Red River basin for a one-month period in 1994. Three separate radiometer retrieval algorithms were evaluated: (1) a single-channel algorithm (H polarization), (2) a two-channel iterative algorithm, and (3) a two-channel reflectivity ratio algorithm. Analysis indicates that the HYDROS accuracy goal of 4% volumetric soil moisture can be met anywhere in the test basin except woodland areas. Nonlinear scaling of higher resolution ancillary vegetation data can adversely affect algorithm retrieval accuracies, especially in heavy tree areas on the east side of the basin.