Active and passive microwave measurements of soil moisture in FIFE

Journal Article · Mon Nov 30 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/92JD00848· OSTI ID:6032533

Wang, J R ^[1]; Gogineni, S P; Ampe, J ^[2]

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1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (United States)
2. Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence (United States)

This work is part of the First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Field Experiment (FIFE), an international land-surface-atmosphere experiment aimed at improving the way climate models represent energy, water, heat, and carbon exchanges, and improving the utilization of satellite based remote sensing to monitor such parameters. This paper reports on the application of active and passive microwave measurement systems to the simultaneous determination of soil moisture. These systems have been tested on common targets very few times. Here C and X band scatterometer data from a helicopter base is compared with L band push broom microwave radiometer (PBMR) data taken from the NASA C-130 aircraft. The regions sampled over FIFE encompass areas with different surface treatments. The scatterometers proved to be sensitive to soil moisture over most of the areas studied, while the radiometer lost sensitivity in regions which had been unburned for years, and which thus had substantial dead organic accumulation. The correlation of soil moisture and backscattered signal was observed to increase with off normal angles.

• OSTI ID: 6032533
• Journal Information: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States), Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States) Vol. 97:D17; ISSN JGREA2; ISSN 0148-0227
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540110
540220* -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
CLIMATE MODELS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MEASURING METHODS
MICROWAVE RADIATION
MOISTURE
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS
REFLECTIVITY
REMOTE SENSING
SCATTERING
SOILS
SPECTRAL REFLECTANCE
SURFACE PROPERTIES