Temperature and texture dependent dielectric model of MOIST soils at the SMOS frequency

In this paper a single-frequent temperature and texture dependent dielectric model for moist soils is proposed. This model is designed for the frequency of 1.4 GHz at which the European sensor SMOS operates to monitor moisture of the Earth surface from space. Earlier, the dielectric model was created, that provides estimations of the complex dielectric constant of moist soils as a function of frequency, temperature, moisture and mineralogy of soils. This model was developed based on extensive measurements of the dielectric constant for a wide ensemble of soils (clay content from 0 to 76%), moistures (from zero to molecular moisture capacity), temperatures (10° C to 40° C), and frequencies (0.3 to 26.5 GHz). This model provides for fairly good accuracy. But, being cumbersome to account for frequency dependencies, the model is not always convenient for practical use at a single frequency. Exclusion of the frequency dependence allowed us to obtain a substantially more simple dielectric model to estimate the complex dielectric constant of soil at a single frequency of 1.4 GHz as a function of moisture, temperature, and clay content.