Preliminary field results of soil moisture from Kuwait desert as a core validation site of SMAP satellite

Field work was conducted in two SMAP 36×36 km grid cells, B and D, located in the west and north of Kuwait, respectively. The in-situ gravimetric sampling field work activity in Grid Cell D indicates a variation of volumetric soil moisture from 0.17 m³ m^-3 in January, 2014 to 0.015 m³ m^-3 in June, 2014. Field work in Grid Cell B indicates a variation from 0.0352 m³ m^-3 in December 2014 to 0.0168 m³ m^-3 in May 2015. Soil roughness was estimated in grid cell D using a pin profilometer and was found to vary from 0.2 to 0.7 RMS with a correlation length ranging from 91 cm to 93 cm. The first weather station was installed in grid cell B in April 2015.