Vegetation and surface roughness effects on AMSR-E land observations

Characteristics of the land surface including soil moisture, vegetation cover, and soil roughness among others influence the microwave emissivity and brightness temperature of the surface as observed from space. Knowledge of the variability of microwave signatures of vegetation and soil roughness is necessary to separate these influences from those of soil moisture for remote sensing applications to global hydrology and climate. We describe here a characterization of vegetation and soil roughness at the frequencies and spatial resolution of the EOS Aqua Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E). A single parameter has been used to approximate the combined effects of vegetation and roughness. AMSR-E data have been analyzed to determine the frequency dependence of this parameter and to generate a global vegetation/roughness map and an estimate of seasonal variability. A physical model is used for the analysis with approximations appropriate to the AMSR-E footprint scale and coefficients calibrated empirically against the AMSR-E data. The spatial variabilities of roughness and vegetation cannot be estimated independently using this approach, but their temporal dynamics allow separation of predominantly static roughness effects from time-varying vegetation effects using multitemporal analysis. Global signals of time-varying vegetation water content derived from this analysis of AMSR-E data are consistent with time-varying biomass estimates obtained by optical/infrared remote sensing techniques.