Investigating spatial aggregation techniques using a heterogeneous radar landscape simulator for reducing uncertainties of soil moisture retrieval from SMAP

In this paper, a heterogeneous landscape simulator is introduced, which will facilitate lifelike forward modeling of various landscapes by taking additional information and ancillary data into account. First results of simple spatial aggregation techniques are discussed and the uncertainty of soil moisture retrieval is quantified. A scaling analysis is performed by investigating above and below-ground modeling parameters for their influence on the radar model output and their impact on simple aggregation problems.