Soil Moisture Retrieval Test over The West of China by Use of
AMSU Microwave Data
Gu Songyan, Zhang Wenjian, Qiu Hong
CMA NSMC
Remote sensing of soil moisture by microwave radiometry has been a subject of intensive studies in
the past two decades. Following the studies done before, a new approach to retrieve surface layer soil
moisture is accomplished in this paper, in which the passive microwave data from operational
satellites (NOAA-15/AMSU) has been used to retrieve surface microwave emissivity, and the
retrieved emissivity is further used to derived surface soil moisture.
The coefficients in the retrieval equation of surface microwave emissivity were corrected based on the
results of microwave radiance forward model simulation. The new set of coefficients is suitable for
non-frozen earth area in the West. Surface moisture information in regional scale over the West in
May 2001 was retrieved by use of semi-empirical method based on the results of surface microwave
radiance forward simulation. In the simulation, two kinds of situation, with canopy and no canopy,
were involved at the AMSU-A window channels frequency points. Good results were got after
comparing with surface region analysis result and point observation data.
The algorithm can make the surface moisture dynamic detection into application. The retrieval results
will be a new data source of land surface physical parameters for sand storm simulation.