Paper No. 201-1
Presentation Time: 8:00 AM
METHODS OF VALIDATING THE SOIL MOISTURE ACTIVE PASSIVE(SMAP) MISSION USING USDA-ARS EXPERIMENTAL WATERSHEDS
The Soil Moisture Active Passive mission (SMAP) provides a global soil moisture product on a 36 km resolution for the near surface. This mission relies upon an international cooperative of in situ networks to provide ground truth references across a variety of landscapes. The USDA Agricultural Research Service operates several experimental watersheds as part of this project with distributed soil moisture networks, measuring soil moisture at a variety of depths including the 5 cm depth, which is critical for satellite validation. Comparisons of the in situ network estimates to the satellite products are ongoing, but initial results have shown a good correspondence between satellite estimates and the in situ soil moisture resources, once scaling functions are applied. The scaling methodologies for the in situ networks are reviewed.