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DATA
SMOS Tropical Cyclone Wind Radii Fixes
The SMOS WRF product is available in Near Real Time to support tropical cyclones (TC) forecasts. It is generated within 4 to 6 hours from sensing from the SMOS L2 swath wind speed products, in the so-called "Fix (F-deck)" format compatible with the US Navy's ATCF (Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting) System. The SMOS WRF "fixes" to the best-track forecasts contain: the SMOS 10-min maximum-sustained winds (in knots) and wind radii (in nautical miles) for the 34 kt (17 m/s), 50 kt (25 m/s) and 64 kt (33 m/s) winds per geographical storm quadrants, and for each SMOS pass intercepting a TC in all the active ocean basins.
SMOS - CryoSat L4 Sea Ice Thickness
The SMOS-CryoSat merged Sea Ice Thickness Level 4 product, in NetCDF format, is based on estimates from both the MIRAS and the SIRAL instruments with a significant reduction in the relative uncertainty for the thickness of the thin ice. A weekly averaged preliminary product is generated every day by the Alfred Wegener Institut (AWI) by merging the weekly CryoSat Sea Ice Thickness product and the daily SMOS Sea Ice Thickness retrieval. A final product is provided with a latency of about 3-4 weeks using a different global sea ice concentration product and a reprocessed CryoSat product. All grids are projected onto the 25 km EASE2 Grid based on a polar aspect spherical Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection. The grid dimension is 5400 x 5400 km, equal to a 432 x 432 grid centered on the geographic pole. Coverage is limited to the October-April (winter) period for the Northern Hemisphere, due to the melting season, from year 2010 onwards.
SMOS NRT L2 Swath Wind Speed
SMOS retrieved surface wind speed gridded maps (with a spatial sampling of 1/4 x 1/4 degrees) are available in NetCDF format. Each product contains parts of ascending and descending orbits and it is generated by Ifremer, starting from the SMOS L1B data products, in Near Real Time i.e. within 4 to 6 hours from sensing time. Before using this dataset, please check the read-me-first note available in the Resources section below.
SMOS Soil Freeze and Thaw State
The SMOS Level 3 Freeze and Thaw (F/T) product provides daily information on the soil state in the Northern Hemisphere based on SMOS observations and associated ancillary data. Daily products, in NetCDF format, are generated by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and are available from 2010 onwards. The processing algorithm makes use of gridded Level 3 brightness temperatures provided by CATDS. The data is provided in the Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid (EASE2-Grid), at 25 km x 25 km resolution. For an optimal exploitation of this dataset, please refer to the Resources section below to access Product Specifications, read-me-first notes, etc.
SMOS L3 Daily Wind Speed
SMOS L3WS products are daily composite maps of the collected SMOS L2 swath wind products for a specific day, provided with the same grid than the Level 2 wind data (SMOS L2WS NRT) but separated into ascending and descending passes. This product is available the day after sensing from Ifremer, in NetCDF format. Before using this dataset, please check the read-me-first note available in the Resources section below.
DOMECair (SMOS)
The purpose of this campaign was to assess the merits of the East Antarctic Plateau around Dome C with the Concordia station as a candidate for an Earthly calibration site. It was an airborne campaign in Antarctica supporting SMOS calibration.
DOMECair (GOCE)
The airborne survey DOMECair 2013 and its instrumentation was designed to obtain calibration and validation data for two different satellite missions of ESA’s Earth Explorer mission, for satellites SMOS and GOCE.
SMOS L1 and L2 Science data
SMOS Level 1 data products are designed for scientific and operational users who need to work with calibrated MIRAS instrument measurements, while SMOS Level 2 data products are designed for scientific and operational users who need to work with geo-located soil moisture and sea surface salinity estimation as retrieved from the L1 dataset. Products from the SMOS Data Processing Ground Segment (DPGS) located at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), belonging to the latest processing baseline, have File Class OPER. Reprocessed SMOS data is tagged as REPR. The Level 1A product is available upon request to members of the SMOS Cal/Val community. The product comprises all calibrated visibilities between receivers (i.e. the interferometric measurements from the sensor including the redundant visibilities), combined per integration time of 1.2 seconds (snapshot). The snapshots are consolidated in a pole-to-pole product file (50 minutes of sensing time) with a maximum size of about 215MB per half orbit (29 half orbits per day). The Level 1B product comprises the result of the image reconstruction algorithm applied to the L1A data. As a result, the reconstructed image at L1B is simply the difference between the sensed scene by the sensor and the artificial scene. The brightness temperature image is available in its Fourier component in the antenna polarisation reference frame top of the atmosphere. Images are combined per integration time of 1.2 seconds (snapshot). The removal of foreign sources (Galactic, Direct Sun, Moon) is also included in the reconstruction. Snapshot consolidation is as per L1A, with a maximum product size of about 115MB per half orbit. ESA provides the Artificial Scene Library (ASL) to add the artificial scene in L1B for any user that wants to start from L1B products and derive the sensed scene. The Level 1C product contains multi-angular brightness temperatures in antenna frame (X-pol, Y-pol, T3 and T4) at the top of the atmosphere, geo-located in an equal-area grid system (ISEA 4H9 - Icosahedral Snyder Equal Area projection). The pixels are consolidated in a pole-to-pole product file (50 minutes of sensing time), with a maximum size of about 350MB per half orbit (29 half orbits per day). Spatial resolution is in the range of 30-50 km. For each L1C product there is also a corresponding Browse product containing brightness temperatures interpolated for an incidence angle of 42.5°. Two L1C products are available: Land for soil moisture retrieval and Sea for sea surface salinity retrieval. The Level 2 Soil Moisture (SM) product comprises soil moisture measurements geo-located in an equal-area grid system ISEA 4H9. The product contains not only the retrieved soil moisture, but also a series of ancillary data derived from the processing (nadir optical thickness, surface temperature, roughness parameter, dielectric constant and brightness temperature retrieved at top of atmosphere and on the surface) with the corresponding uncertainties. The pixels are consolidated in a pole-to-pole product file (50 minutes of sensing time), with a maximum size of about 7MB (25MB uncompressed data) per half orbit (29 half orbits per day). This product is available in both Earth Explorer and NetCDF formats. The Level 2 Ocean Salinity (OS) product comprises sea surface salinity measurements geo-located in an equal-area grid system ISEA 4H9. The product contains one single swath-based sea surface salinity retrieved with and without Land-Sea contamination correction, SSS anomaly based on WOA-2009 referred to Land-Sea corrected sea surface salinity, brightness temperature at the top of the atmosphere and at the sea surface with their corresponding uncertainties. The pixels are consolidated in a pole-to-pole product file (50 minutes of sensing time), with a maximum size of about 10MB (25MB uncompressed data) per half orbit (29 half orbits per day). This product is available in both Earth Explorer and NetCDF formats. For an optimal exploitation of the SMOS L1 and L2 datasets, please refer to the Resources section below in order to access Product Specifications, read-me-first notes, etc.
SMOS NRT Data Products
The SMOS Near Real Time products include Level 1 geo-located brightness temperature and Level 2 geo-located soil moisture estimation. The SMOS NRT L1 Light BUFR product contains brightness temperature geo-located on a reduced Gaussian grid (T511/N256), only for "land" pixels but keeping the full angular resolution. The pixels are consolidated in a full orbit dump segment (i.e. around 100 minutes of sensing time) with a maximum size of about 30MB per orbit. Spatial resolution is in the range of 30-50 km. This product is distributed in BUFR format. The SMOS NRT L2 Soil Moisture Neural Network (NN) product provides NRT soil moisture data based on the statistical coefficients estimated by a neural network. It is provided in the SMOS DGG grid and only at the satellite track. It also provides an estimation of the uncertainty of the estimated soil moisture product, and the probability that a soil moisture value is contaminated by Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). This product is distributed in NetCDF format. The L2 data product is also distributed via the EUMETCast Europe Service (DVB), upon registration on the EUMETSAT Earth Observation Portal. The Ku-band DVB reception station must be situated within the service coverage in Europe. SMOS NRT data is also regularly delivered to the UK Met-Office, then made available to operational agencies and research and development institutes via the WMO GTS Network. For an optimal exploitation of the SMOS NRT products please consult the read-me-first notes available in the Resources section below.
SMOS Auxiliary Data
The Level 2 ECMWF SMOS Auxiliary data product, openly available to all users, contains ECMWF data on the ISEA 4-9 DGG corresponding to SMOS half-orbit. It is used by both the ocean salinity and soil moisture operational processors to store the geophysical parameters from ECMWF forecasts. If you are a member of the SMOS Cal/Val community, you may also request access to other Level 1 and 2 "dynamic" and "static" auxiliary datasets. The detailed content of the SMOS Auxiliary Data Files (ADF) is described in the Products Specification documents available in the Resources section below.
SMOS L3 Sea Ice Thickness
The SMOS Level 3 Sea Ice Thickness product, in NetCDF format, provides daily estimations of SMOS-retrieved sea ice thickness (and its uncertainty) at the edge of the Arctic Ocean during the October-April (winter) season, from year 2010 onwards. The sea ice thickness is retrieved from the SMOS L1C product, up to a depth of approximately 0.5-1 m, depending on the ice temperature and salinity. Daily maps, projected on polar stereographic grid of 12.5 km, are generated by the Alfred Wegener Institut (AWI). This product is complementary with sea ice thickness measurements from ESA's CryoSat and Copernicus Sentinel-3 missions.
WISE
The objective of WInd and Salinity Experiment 2001 (WISE 2001) was to get more data points and better wind speed (WS) measurements so as to reduce the sensitivity to WS uncertainty.
LOSAC
The L-band Ocean Salinity Airborne Campaign (LOSAC) objective is to understand the nature of the wind driven signatures in order to evaluate if corrections are necessary prior to salinity estimations based on the radiometer signals.