Global Scale Mapping of Subsurface Scattering Signals Impacting ASCAT Soil Moisture Retrievals

2023/08/31 by Wolfgang Wagner, Roland Lindorfer, Sebastian Hahn +5 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · #Soil Moisture and Remote Sensing

paper · pdf · doi:10.36227/techrxiv.24013890.v1

openalex publication_date 2023/08/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

Microwave pulses can penetrate several centimeters to decimeters into dry soils. As a result, active microwave sensors are sensitive to discontinuities in the soil profile caused by the presence of stones, rocks or distinct soil layers. Such subsurface scattering effects can disturb the retrieval of soil moisture, vegetation and other land surface properties from active microwave measurements. In this study we mapped subsurface scatterers impacting C-band backscatter measurements acquired by the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) on a global scale. Users of ASCAT soil moisture data distributed by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Support to Operational Hydrology and Water Management are recommended to use the subsurface scattering masks generated within this study.

Citations

• The Global Land Data Assimilation System
• The ASCAT Soil Moisture Product: A Review of its Specifications, Validation Results, and Emerging Applications
• Present and future Köppen-Geiger climate classification maps at 1-km resolution
• The ERA5 global reanalysis
• ERA5-Land: a state-of-the-art global reanalysis dataset for land applications
• SoilGrids 2.0: producing soil information for the globe with quantified spatial uncertainty

Discussions

• Our remote sensing unit published a preprint on @TechRxiv_org: they mapped subsurface scatterers impacting C-band backscatter measurements acquired by the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) on a global s [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]