The effects of vegetation in soil moisture retrieval using microwave radiometer data

The effects of vegetation are very important in the process of retrieving soil moisture with space borne radiometer. We develop an experimental model, at C-band (about 6.6 GHz), to estimate the effects of vegetation. The developed model is more efficient than the original model and the estimate of the vegetation opacity with the developed model is approximate to the original model. Sets of AMSR-E/Aqua L2A Global Swath Spatially-Resampled Brightness Temperatures (Tb) data, during the SMEX02 period in the watershed region, are used to retrieve soil dielectric constant and the land surface temperature only with the two channels (V- and H-polarization) at 6.92 GHz. The retrieved soil dielectric constant k and land surface temperature Te with the developed model are more approximate to the k and Te measured at WC13/14, and the process takes about 80% CPU-time cost with the developed model than that with the original model. The retrieved results without considering the effects of vegetation vary too significant during the time-sequence, and are not approximate to the synchronic measured data at WC13/14.