NOaa Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) and its validations

Global soil moisture is one of the critical land surface initial conditions for numerical weather, climate, and hydrological predictions. Since it is not practical to provide global maps using ground measurements, land surface soil moisture remote sensing has been a hot research topic in the last several decades. As a result, a number of soil moisture products have been produced from different satellite sensors with different spatial and temporal coverage and quality. To make effective use of all available soil moisture products, a Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) has been developed at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to produce a one-stop shop for all operational soil moisture products from different satellite sensors. To increase the spatial and temporal coverage of soil moisture product, SMOPS also provides a data layer that merges soil moisture retrievals from multiple satellites in addition to the individual soil moisture retrievals from each of the available satellites. This paper gives an overall introduction of SMOPS and its validations using ground measurements.