A downscaling method for distributing surface soil moisture within a microwave pixel: Application to the Monsoon '90 data

A downscaling method for the near-surface soil moisture retrieved from passive microwave sensors is applied to the PBMR data collected during the Monsoon '90 experiment. The downscaling method requires (1) the coarse resolution microwave observations, (2) the fine-scale distribution of soil tem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing of environment 2006-01, Vol.101 (3), p.379-389
Main Authors: Merlin, O., Chehbouni, A., Kerr, Y.H., Goodrich, D.C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied geophysics
Continental interfaces, environment
Downscaling
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
Hydrology
Hydrology. Hydrogeology
Internal geophysics
Monsoon '90 experiment
Passive microwave remote sensing
Sciences of the Universe
SMOS mission
Surface soil moisture
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Summary:A downscaling method for the near-surface soil moisture retrieved from passive microwave sensors is applied to the PBMR data collected during the Monsoon '90 experiment. The downscaling method requires (1) the coarse resolution microwave observations, (2) the fine-scale distribution of soil temperature and (3) the fine-scale distribution of surface conditions composed of atmospheric forcing and the parameters involved in the modeling of land surface–atmosphere interactions. During the Monsoon '90 experiment, eight ground-based meteorological and flux stations were operating over the 150 km 2 study area simultaneously with the acquisition of the aircraft-based L-band PBMR data. The heterogeneous scene is hence composed of eight subpixels and the microwave pixel is generated by aggregating the microwave emission of all sites. The results indicate a good agreement between the downscaled and ground-based soil moisture as long as the intensity of solar radiation is sufficiently high to use the soil temperature as a tracer of the spatial variability of near-surface soil moisture.
ISSN:0034-4257
1879-0704
DOI:10.1016/j.rse.2006.01.004