Spatio-temporal evaluation of resolution enhancement for passive microwave soil moisture and vegetation optical depth

Space-borne passive microwave radiometers are used to derive land surface parameters such as surface soil moisture and vegetation optical depth (VOD). However, the value of such products in regional hydrology is limited by their coarse resolution. In this study, the land parameter retrieval model (LPRM) is used to derive enhanced resolution (∼10 km) soil moisture and VOD from advanced microwave scanning radiometer (AMSR-E) brightness temperatures sharpened by a modulation technique based on high-frequency observations. A precipitation mask based on brightness temperatures was applied to remove precipitation artefacts in the sharpened LPRM products. The spatial and temporal patterns in the resulting products are evaluated against field-measured and modeled soil moisture as well as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) over mainland Australia. Results show that resolution enhancement accurately sharpens the boundaries of different vegetation types, lakes and wetlands. Significant changes in temporal agreement between LPRM products and related datasets are limited to specific areas, such as lakes and coastal areas. Spatial correlations, on the other hand, increase over most of Australia. In addition, hydrological signals from irrigation and water bodies that were absent in the low-resolution soil moisture product become clearly visible after resolution enhancement. The increased information detail in the high-resolution LPRM products should benefit hydrological studies at regional scales.