HR: 0800h
AN: H11B-1260    [Abstracts]
TI: Estimation of High Resolution Estimates of Soil Moisture Change and Their Assimilation Into a Land Surface Model
AU: * narayan, u
EM: unarayan@geol.sc.edu
AF: department of geological sciences, 701, sumter street, university of south carolina, columbia, sc 29208 United States
AU: lakshmi, v
EM: vlakshmi@geol.sc.edu
AF: department of geological sciences, 701, sumter street, university of south carolina, columbia, sc 29208 United States
AB: A methodology that combines active and passive microwave and optical remote sensing data to arrive at disaggregated estimates of soil moisture change is developed. The technique relies on sensitivity of passive microwave radiation in the L- band to soil moisture, sensitivity of active microwave data in the L- band to surface roughness and soil moisture, and the sensitivity of optical data to vegetation water content, in order to disaggregate soil moisture change estimated from passive microwave data to the higher spatial resolution of radar operation. The methodology involves correction of radar backscattering coefficients for surface roughness variability and vegetation water attenuation effects. From the corrected radar backscatter change estimates, soil moisture change estimates are derived using a semi empirical model for radar backscatter. Soil moisture change is closely related to soil hydraulic properties and assimilation of surface layer soil moisture change estimates into a hydrologic model will potentially improve its performance. Assimilation technique and initial results from an assimilation exercise are presented. The data used in the study were collected during the SMEX02 campaign conducted in the Walnut Creek region of Iowa in 2002. Techniques presented in this study have the potential to be applied to HYDROS data in the future.
DE: 1816 Estimation and forecasting
DE: 1839 Hydrologic scaling
DE: 1855 Remote sensing (1640)
DE: 1866 Soil moisture
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005