Surface soil moisture retrieval from L-band radiometry: a global regression study

Using a global simulation of L-band (1.4 GHz) brightness temperature (T_B) for two years (1987 and 1988), the relationship between L-band brightness temperatures and surface soil moisture was analyzed using simple regression models. The global T_B dataset describes continental pixels at a half-degree spatial resolution and accounts for within-pixel heterogeneity, based on 1-km resolution land cover maps. Two different statistical methods were investigated. First, a single regression model was obtained using a linear combination of T_B indexes. This method consisted in retrieving surface soil moisture using the same global regression model for all the pixels. Second, a regression model was calibrated over each pixel using similar linear combinations of the T_B indexes. In both cases, the influence of the radiometric noise on T_B was investigated. Applying these two methods, the capability of L-band T_B observations to monitor surface soil moisture was evaluated at the global scale and during a two-year time period. Global maps of the estimated accuracy of the soil moisture retrievals were produced. These results contribute to better define the potential of the observations from future spaceborne missions such as the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission.