NISAR Provisional Soil Moisture (Version 1)

NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) backscatter observations will estimate a global high-resolution soil moisture product (200 m). This product will be provided on average twice every 12 days. The NISAR soil moisture product is expected to have a data latency of 72 hours. The NISAR Level 2 backscatter product has a data latency of 48 hours.

Soil moisture estimates will be provided over areas with dense vegetation (vegetation water content greater than 5 kg/m2) but will be flagged during retrieval. Areas with urban build-up, permanent snow and ice cover, and permanent inland water bodies will be flagged, and no soil moisture retrieval will be performed. No soil moisture retrieval will be performed over areas with excessive precipitation, frozen ground, or areas with snow on the ground. The NISAR soil moisture product will have an accuracy goal of 0.06 m3/m3 over unflagged areas with vegetation water content below 5 kg/m2. The 5+5 MHz product will be aggregated to 400 meters, but is still on the 200m EASE-Grid.

The products in this collection are considered Provisional products and are intended to facilitate data exploration and process studies that do not require rigorous validation. These data are partially validated, and improvements are continuing; quality may not be optimal since validation and quality assurance are ongoing.