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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #309920
Title: SCA transfer from AMSR-E to AMSR2

Author
item Mladenova, Iliana
item Jackson, Thomas
item NJOKU, ENI - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
item BINDLISH, R. - Science Systems, Inc
item Cosh, Michael
item CHAN - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/21/2014
Publication Date: 9/23/2014
Citation: Mladenova, I., Jackson, T.J., Njoku, E., Bindlish, R., Cosh, M.H., Chan 2014. SCA transfer from AMSR-E to AMSR2. Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer Science Team Meeting. September 23-24, 2014. Huntsville, Alabama. 2014 CDROM.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The current AMSR-E soil moisture product distributed through NSIDC is developed using the Normalized Polarization Difference (NPD) algorithm. Several validation exercises have showed performance issues with the NPD-based AMSR-E product. This motivated us to re-examine the NPR approach and outline possible improvement approaches. Several investigations lead us to a number of possible solutions, including modify the theoretical bias of the NPD approach, adjust the soil moisture values through statistically rescaling the final retrievals, and/or switch to an alternative retrieval algorithm. Major factor when deciding on the most plausible improvement approach was the fact that the AMSR-E data record is now continued by AMSR2, which provides the opportunity to generate a long-term soil moisture time series data record from the same instrument. Thus, taking into consideration AMSR2, it was decided that the two most appropriate approaches would be to recalibrate the NPD algorithm coefficients and add an additional soil moisture product retrieved using the Singe Channel Algorithm (SCA). SCA was selected as an alternative based on its heritage with AMSR-E and as results of a series of validation analysis, which showed comparable SCA performance as other alternative passive-based retrieval approaches. Talk will briefly illustrate the schematics and processing flow of the combined NPD-SCA code. Near-future goal is to transfer this combined code to AMSR2. The SCA component only was successfully implemented using AMSR2 observations. Preliminary validation analysis against in situ data demonstrated reasonable accuracy of the AMSR2-SCA product. However, further validation is needed to establish the consistency between AMSR-E and AMSR2.