Wade T. Crow

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission is one of the first Earth observation satellites being developed by NASA in response to the National Research Councils Decadal Survey. SMAP will make global measurements of the soil moisture present at the Earths land surface and will distinguish frozen from thawed land surfaces. Direct observations of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state from space will allow significantly improved estimates of water, energy, and carbon transfers between the land and the atmosphere. The accuracy of numerical models of the atmosphere used in weather prediction and climate projections are critically dependent on the correct characterization of these transfers. Soil moisture measurements are also directly applicable to flood assessment and drought monitoring. SMAP observations can help monitor these natural hazards, resulting in potentially great economic and social benefits. SMAP observations of soil moisture and freeze/thaw timing will also reduce a major uncertainty in quantifying the global carbon balance by helping to resolve an apparent missing carbon sink on land over the boreal latitudes. The SMAP mission concept will utilize L-band radar and radiometer instruments sharing a rotating 6-m mesh reflector antenna to provide high-resolution and high-accuracy global maps of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state every two to three days. In addition, the SMAP project will use these observations with advanced modeling and data assimilation to provide deeper root-zone soil moisture and net ecosystem exchange of carbon. SMAP is scheduled for launch in the 2014-2015 time frame.

The assimilation of remotely sensed soil brightness temperature imagery into a land surface model using Ensemble Kalman filtering: a case study based on ESTAR measurements during SGP97

An Ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is used to assimilate airborne measurements of 1.4 GHz surface brightness temperature ðTBÞ acquired during the 1997 Southern Great Plains Hydrology Experiment (SGP97) into the TOPMODEL-based Land–Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (TOPLATS). In this way, the potential of using EnKF-assimilated remote measurements of TB to compensate land surface model predictions for errors arising from a climatological description of rainfall is assessed. The use of a real remotely sensed data source allows for a more complete examination of the challenges faced in implementing assimilation strategies than previous studies where observations were synthetically generated. Results demonstrate that the EnKF is an effective and computationally competitive strategy for the assimilation of remotely sensed TB measurements into land surface models. The EnKF is capable of extracting spatial and temporal trends in root-zone (40 cm) soil water content from TB measurements based solely on surface (5 cm) conditions. The accuracy of surface state and flux predictions made with the EnKF, ESTAR TB measurements, and climatological rainfall data within the Central Facility site during SGP97 are shown to be superior to predictions derived from open loop modeling driven by sparse temporal sampling of rainfall at frequencies consistent with expectations of future missions designed to measure rainfall from space (6–10 observations per day). Specific assimilation challenges posed by inadequacies in land surface model physics and spatial support contrasts between model predictions and sensor retrievals are discussed. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The hydrosphere State (hydros) Satellite mission: an Earth system pathfinder for global mapping of soil moisture and land freeze/thaw

The Hydrosphere State Mission (Hydros) is a pathfinder mission in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth System Science Pathfinder Program (ESSP). The objective of the mission is to provide exploratory global measurements of the earths soil moisture at 10-km resolution with two- to three-days revisit and land-surface freeze/thaw conditions at 3-km resolution with one- to two-days revisit. The mission builds on the heritage of ground-based and airborne passive and active low-frequency microwave measurements that have demonstrated and validated the effectiveness of the measurements and associated algorithms for estimating the amount and phase (frozen or thawed) of surface soil moisture. The mission data will enable advances in weather and climate prediction and in mapping processes that link the water, energy, and carbon cycles. The Hydros instrument is a combined radar and radiometer system operating at 1.26 GHz (with VV, HH, and HV polarizations) and 1.41 GHz (with H, V, and U polarizations), respectively. The radar and the radiometer share the aperture of a 6-m antenna with a look-angle of 39/spl deg/ with respect to nadir. The lightweight deployable mesh antenna is rotated at 14.6 rpm to provide a constant look-angle scan across a swath width of 1000 km. The wide swath provides global coverage that meet the revisit requirements. The radiometer measurements allow retrieval of soil moisture in diverse (nonforested) landscapes with a resolution of 40 km. The radar measurements allow the retrieval of soil moisture at relatively high resolution (3 km). The mission includes combined radar/radiometer data products that will use the synergy of the two sensors to deliver enhanced-quality 10-km resolution soil moisture estimates. In this paper, the science requirements and their traceability to the instrument design are outlined. A review of the underlying measurement physics and key instrument performance parameters are also presented.

Performance Metrics for Soil Moisture Retrievals and Application Requirements

Abstract Quadratic performance metrics such as root-mean-square error (RMSE) and time series correlation are often used to assess the accuracy of geophysical retrievals (satellite measurements) with respect to true fields. These metrics are related; nevertheless, each has advantages and disadvantages. In this study the authors explore the relation between the RMSE and correlation metrics in the presence of biases in the mean as well as in the amplitude of fluctuations (standard deviation) between estimated and true fields. Such biases are common, for example, in satellite retrievals of soil moisture and impose constraints on achievable and meaningful RMSE targets. Last, an approach is introduced for converting a requirement in an application’s product into a corresponding requirement for soil moisture accuracy. The approach can help with the formulation of soil moisture measurement requirements. It can also help determine the utility of a given retrieval product for applications.

Evaluating the Utility of Remotely Sensed Soil Moisture Retrievals for Operational Agricultural Drought Monitoring

Soil moisture is a fundamental data source used by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) International Production Assessment Division (IPAD) to monitor crop growth stage and condition and subsequently, globally forecast agricultural yields. Currently, the USDA IPAD estimates surface and root-zone soil moisture using a two-layer modified Palmer soil moisture model forced by global precipitation and temperature measurements. However, this approach suffers from well-known errors arising from uncertainty in model forcing data and highly simplified model physics. Here, we attempt to correct for these errors by designing and applying an Ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) data assimilation system to integrate surface soil moisture retrievals from the NASA Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) into the USDA modified Palmer soil moisture model. An assessment of soil moisture analysis products produced from this assimilation has been completed for a five-year (2002 to 2007) period over the North American continent between 23° N-50° N and 128° W-65° W. In particular, a data denial experimental approach is utilized to isolate the added utility of integrating remotely sensed soil moisture by comparing EnKF soil moisture results obtained using (relatively) low-quality precipitation products obtained from real-time satellite imagery to baseline Palmer model runs forced with higher quality rainfall. An analysis of root-zone anomalies for each model simulation suggests that the assimilation of AMSR-E surface soil moisture retrievals can add significant value to USDA root-zone predictions derived from real-time satellite precipitation products.

An adaptive ensemble Kalman filter for soil moisture data assimilation

[1] In a 19-year twin experiment for the Red-Arkansas river basin we assimilate synthetic surface soil moisture retrievals into the NASA Catchment land surface model. We demonstrate how poorly specified model and observation error parameters affect the quality of the assimilation products. In particular, soil moisture estimates from data assimilation are sensitive to observation and model error variances and, for very poor input error parameters, may even be worse than model estimates without data assimilation. Estimates of surface heat fluxes and runoff are at best marginally improved through the assimilation of surface soil moisture and tend to have large errors when the assimilation system operates with poor input error parameters. We present a computationally affordable, adaptive assimilation system that continually adjusts model and observation error parameters in response to internal diagnostics. The adaptive filter can identify model and observation error variances and provide generally improved assimilation estimates when compared to the non-adaptive system.

Estimating Spatial Sampling Errors in Coarse-Scale Soil Moisture Estimates Derived from Point-Scale Observations

Abstract The validation of satellite surface soil moisture products requires comparisons between point-scale ground observations and footprint-scale (>100 km2) retrievals. In regions containing a limited number of measurement sites per footprint, some of the observed difference between the retrievals and ground observations is attributable to spatial sampling error and not the intrinsic error of the satellite retrievals themselves. Here, a triple collocation (TC) approach is applied to footprint-scale soil moisture products acquired from passive microwave remote sensing, land surface modeling, and a single ground-based station with the goal of the estimating (and correcting for) spatial sampling error in footprint-scale soil moisture estimates derived from the ground station. Using these three soil moisture products, the TC approach is shown to estimate point-to-footprint soil moisture sampling errors to within 0.0059 m3 m−3 and enhance the ability to validate satellite footprint-scale soil moisture produ...

Assessment of the SMAP Passive Soil Moisture Product

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite mission was launched on January 31, 2015. The observatory was developed to provide global mapping of high-resolution soil moisture and freeze-thaw state every two to three days using an L-band (active) radar and an L-band (passive) radiometer. After an irrecoverable hardware failure of the radar on July 7, 2015, the radiometer-only soil moisture product became the only operational soil moisture product for SMAP. The product provides soil moisture estimates posted on a 36 km Earth-fixed grid produced using brightness temperature observations from descending passes. Within months after the commissioning of the SMAP radiometer, the product was assessed to have attained preliminary (beta) science quality, and data were released to the public for evaluation in September 2015. The product is available from the NASA Distributed Active Archive Center at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. This paper provides a summary of the Level 2 Passive Soil Moisture Product (L2_SM_P) and its validation against in situ ground measurements collected from different data sources. Initial in situ comparisons conducted between March 31, 2015 and October 26, 2015, at a limited number of core validation sites (CVSs) and several hundred sparse network points, indicate that the V-pol Single Channel Algorithm (SCA-V) currently delivers the best performance among algorithms considered for L2_SM_P, based on several metrics. The accuracy of the soil moisture retrievals averaged over the CVSs was 0.038 m3/m3 unbiased root-mean-square difference (ubRMSD), which approaches the SMAP mission requirement of 0.040 m3/m3.

Role of Subsurface Physics in the Assimilation of Surface Soil Moisture Observations

Abstract Root-zone soil moisture controls the land–atmosphere exchange of water and energy, and exhibits memory that may be useful for climate prediction at monthly scales. Assimilation of satellite-based surface soil moisture observations into a land surface model is an effective way to estimate large-scale root-zone soil moisture. The propagation of surface information into deeper soil layers depends on the model-specific representation of subsurface physics that is used in the assimilation system. In a suite of experiments, synthetic surface soil moisture observations are assimilated into four different models [Catchment, Mosaic, Noah, and Community Land Model (CLM)] using the ensemble Kalman filter. The authors demonstrate that identical twin experiments significantly overestimate the information that can be obtained from the assimilation of surface soil moisture observations. The second key result indicates that the potential of surface soil moisture assimilation to improve root-zone information is h...

The Contributions of Precipitation and Soil Moisture Observations to the Skill of Soil Moisture Estimates in a Land Data Assimilation System

AbstractThe contributions of precipitation and soil moisture observations to soil moisture skill in a land data assimilation system are assessed. Relative to baseline estimates from the Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), the study investigates soil moisture skill derived from (i) model forcing corrections based on large-scale, gauge- and satellite-based precipitation observations and (ii) assimilation of surface soil moisture retrievals from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System (AMSR-E). Soil moisture skill (defined as the anomaly time series correlation coefficient R) is assessed using in situ observations in the continental United States at 37 single-profile sites within the Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) for which skillful AMSR-E retrievals are available and at 4 USDA Agricultural Research Service (“CalVal”) watersheds with high-quality distributed sensor networks that measure soil moisture at the scale of land model and satel...