Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Geosciences and Earth Sciences
Christian Campo - The City College of New York
Co-Author(s): Hamidreza Norouzi, New York City College of Technology, NY
Soil moisture is defined as the water contained in the spaces between soil particles. Soil moisture content is among the most important physical parameters in hydrology, climate, and environmental studies. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) is one of many remote sensors that collects daily information of soil moisture of the surface land. However, many factors such as ancillary data and vegetation scattering can affect the signal and the estimation. Therefore, this information needs to be validated against some ‘groundtruth’ observations. NOAA – Cooperative Remote Sensing and Technology (CREST) center at the City University of New York has a site located in Millbrook, NY with several in situ soil moisture probes.
In situ observations are conducted using soil moisture sensors (Stevens Digital Hydra Probe II) and Cosmic-Ray Soil Moisture Observing System (COSMOS probes). Soil moisture information was measured in seven different locations from 2012 to 2015. Hydra proves are used to measure six of these locations, which are located in Millbrook, NY and a COSMOS probe, for the last location, is located near the Savannah River, SC. Due to missing days and nights, the total sample compared between satellite and ground measurements was reduced to less than 650 for both days and nights. Analysis of the sensors and AMSR2 indicated a weak correlation with the hydra probes (less than 0.16) and a moderate correlation with COSMOS (between 0.25 to 0.42). Furthermore, root mean square error (RMSE) is used to measure the error indicating better results for COSMOS against Hydra probes. Finally, these results show that the retrieval algorithm of AMSR2 is appropriate under certain circumstances and this validation can be used to provide information so that the algorithm can be improved over the area of the United States for future studies.
References: Kim, S., Liu, Y., Johnson, F., Parinussa, R., Sharma, A. [May 2015]. A global comparison of alternate AMSR2 soil moisture products: Why do they differ?, Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 161, Pages 43-62, ISSN 0034-4257.
Zeng, J., Li Z., Chen, Q., Bi, H., Qiu, J., Zou, P. [15 June 2015]. Evaluation of remotely sensed and reanalysis soil moisture products over the Tibetan Plateau using in-situ observations, Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 163, Pages 91-110, ISSN 0034-4257.
Zreda, M., Shuttleworth, W., Zeng, X., Zweck, C., Desilets, D., Franz, T., et al. [2012]. COSMOS: the COsmic-ray Soil Moisture Observing System. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 16(11).
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This project was made possible by the Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Satellite and Ground-Based Remote Sensing at CREST_2 program funded by the National Science Foundation under grant AGS-1062934. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the award recipient and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Science Foundation. This research is supported by the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF REU) Grant No. AGS-1062934 under the leadership of Dr. Reginald Blake, Dr. Janet Liou-Mark, Ms. Laura Yuen-Lau. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Cooperative Remote Sensing Science and Technology Center (NOAA-CREST) for supporting this project. NOAA CREST - Cooperative Agreement No: NA11SEC4810004. I would like to thank Dr. Reginald Blake, Dr. Janet Liou-Mark and Ms. Laura Yuen-Lau for the opportunity given to me to be able to perform this research. I would also like to specially thank Dr. Hamidreza Norouzi for his patience and working hard with me through this research.
Faculty Advisor: Hamidreza Norouzi,