From the Determination of Sea Emissivity to the Retrieval of Salinity: Recent Contributions to the SMOS Mission from the UPC and ICM

This work summarizes the main findings of the activities carried out in the past years by the Microwave Radiometry Team at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in the field of sea surface salinity retrieval within the frame of the SMOS mission in collaboration with the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM/CMIMA-CSIC). They cover the measurement of the dielectric permittivity of the sea water at L- band, the impact on the sea emissivity of the surface roughness (waves, swell, currents, rain ...) and oil spills, and its comparison with numerical models, as well as the development of sea surface salinity retrieval algorithms for SMOS.