Validation of AMSR-E soil moisture using L-band airborne radiometer data from National Airborne Field Experiment 2006

AMSR-E has been extensively evaluated under a wide range of ground and climate conditions using in situ and aircraft data, where the latter were primarily used for assessing the TB calibration accuracy. However, none of the previous work evaluates AMSR-E performance under the conditions of flood irrigation or other forms of standing water. Also, it should be mentioned that global soil moisture retrievals from AMSR-E typically utilize X-band data. Here, C-band based AMSR-E soil moisture estimates are evaluated using 1 km resolution retrievals derived from L-band aircraft data collected during the National Airborne Field Experiment (NAFE'06) field campaign in November 2006. NAFE'06 was conducted in the Murrumbidgee catchment area in southeastern Australia, which offers diverse ground conditions, including extensive areas with dryland, irrigation, and rice fields. The data allowed us to examine the impact of irrigation and standing water on the accuracy of satellite-derived soil moisture estimates from AMSR-E using passive microwave remote sensing. It was expected that in fields with standing water, the satellite estimates would have a lower accuracy as compared to soil moisture values over the rest of the domain. Results showed sensitivity of the AMSR-E to changes in soil moisture caused by both precipitation and irrigation, as well as good spatial (average R = 0.92 and RMSD = 0.049 m3/m3) and temporal (R = 0.94 and RMSD = 0.04 m3/m3) agreement between the satellite and aircraft soil moisture retrievals; however, under the NAFE'06 ground conditions, the satellite retrievals consistently overestimated the soil moisture conditions compared to the aircraft.

Research highlights
► The paper examined AMSR-E sensitivity to irrigation and standing water.
► Accuracy was assessed using a L-band aircraft-derived data set.
► AMSR-E soil moisture estimates were higher as compared to the aircraft product.
► AMSR-E adequately discriminated between irrigation and precipitation events.
► AMSR-E and the aircraft product agreed better under non-irrigation conditions.