Precipitation from Space: Advancing Earth System Science

Of the three primary sources of spatially contiguous precipitation observations (surface networks, ground-based radar, and satellite-based radar/radiometers), only the last is a viable source over ocean and much of the Earth's land. As recently as 15 years ago, users needing quantitative detail of precipitation on anything under a monthly time scale relied upon products derived from geostationary satellite thermal infrared (IR) indices. The Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI) passive microwave (PMW) imagers originated in 1987 and continue today with the SSMI sounder (SSMIS) sensor. The fortunate longevity of the joint National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is providing the environmental science community a nearly unbroken data record (as of April 2012, over 14 years) of tropical and sub-tropical precipitation processes. TRMM was originally conceived in the mid-1980s as a climate mission with relatively modest goals, including monthly averaged precipitation. TRMM data were quickly exploited for model data assimilation and, beginning in 1999 with the availability of near real time data, for tropical cyclone warnings. To overcome the intermittently spaced revisit from these and other low Earth-orbiting satellites, many methods to merge PMW-based precipitation data and geostationary satellite observations have been developed, such as the TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Product and the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) morphing method (CMORPH. The purpose of this article is not to provide a survey or assessment of these and other satellite-based precipitation datasets, which are well summarized in several recent articles. Rather, the intent is to demonstrate how the availability and continuity of satellite-based precipitation data records is transforming the ways that scientific and societal issues related to precipitation are addressed, in ways that would not be otherwise possible. These developments have taken place in parallel with the growth of an increasingly interconnected scientific environment. Scientists from different disciplines can easily interact with each other via information and materials they encounter online, and collaborate remotely without ever meeting each other in person. Likewise, these precipitation datasets are quickly and easily available via various data portals and are widely used. Within the framework of the NASA/JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM mission, these applications will become increasingly interconnected. We emphasize that precipitation observations by themselves provide an incomplete picture of the state of the atmosphere. For example, it is unlikely that a richer understanding of the global water cycle will be possible by standalone missions and algorithms, but must also involve some component of data, where model analyses of the physical state are constrained alongside multiple observations (e.g., precipitation, evaporation, radiation). The next section provides examples extracted from the many applications that use various high-resolution precipitation products. The final section summarizes the future system for global precipitation processing

Error characterisation of global active and passive microwave soil moisture data sets

Understanding the error structures of remotely sensed soil moisture products is essential for correctly interpreting observed variations and trends in the data or assimilating them in hydrological or numerical weather prediction models. Nevertheless, a spatially coherent assessment of the quality of the various globally available data sets is often hampered by the limited availability over space and time of reliable in-situ measurements. This study explores the triple collocation error estimation technique for assessing the relative quality of several globally available soil moisture products from active (ASCAT) and passive (AMSR-E and SSM/I) microwave sensors. The triple collocation technique is a powerful tool to estimate the root mean square error while simultaneously solving for systematic differences in the climatologies of a set of three independent data sources. In addition to the scatterometer and radiometer data sets, we used the ERA-Interim and GLDAS-NOAH reanalysis soil moisture data sets as a third, independent reference. The prime objective is to reveal trends in uncertainty related to different observation principles (passive versus active), the use of different frequencies (C-, X-, and Ku-band) for passive microwave observations, and the choice of the independent reference data set (ERA-Interim versus GLDAS-NOAH). <br><br> The results suggest that the triple collocation method provides realistic error estimates. Observed spatial trends agree well with the existing theory and studies on the performance of different observation principles and frequencies with respect to land cover and vegetation density. In addition, if all theoretical prerequisites are fulfilled (e.g. a sufficiently large number of common observations is available and errors of the different data sets are uncorrelated) the errors estimated for the remote sensing products are hardly influenced by the choice of the third independent data set. The results obtained in this study can help us in developing adequate strategies for the combined use of various scatterometer and radiometer-based soil moisture data sets, e.g. for improved flood forecast modelling or the generation of superior multi-mission long-term soil moisture data sets

Downscaling soil moisture over regions that include multiple coarse-resolution grid cells

2016 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.Many applications require soil moisture estimates over large spatial extents (30-300 km) and at fine-resolutions (10-30 m). Remote-sensing methods can provide soil moisture estimates over very large spatial extents (continental to global) at coarse resolutions (10-40 km), but their output must be downscaled to reach fine resolutions. When large spatial extents are considered, the downscaling procedure must consider multiple coarse-resolution grid cells, yet little attention has been given to the treatment of multiple grid cells. The objective of this paper is to compare the performance of different methods for addressing multiple coarse grid cells. To accomplish this goal, the Equilibrium Moisture from Topography, Vegetation, and Soil (EMT+VS) downscaling model is generalized to accept multiple coarse grid cells, and two methods for their treatment are implemented and compared. The first method (fixed window) is a direct extension of the original EMT+VS model and downscales each coarse grid cell independently. The second method (shifting window) replaces the coarse grid cell values with values that are calculated from windows that are centered on each fine grid cell. The window values are weighted averages of the coarse grid values within the window extent, and three weighting methods are considered (box, disk, and Gaussian). The methods are applied to three small catchments with detailed soil moisture observations and one large region. The fixed window typically provides more accurate estimates of soil moisture than the shifting window, but it produces abrupt changes in soil moisture at the coarse grid boundaries, which may be problematic for some applications. The three weighting methods produce similar results

Future Opportunities and Challenges in Remote Sensing of Drought

The value of satellite remote sensing for drought monitoring was first realized more than two decades ago with the application of Normalized Difference Index (NDVI) data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) for assessing the effect of drought on vegetation. Other indices such as the Vegetation Health Index (VHI) were also developed during this time period, and applied to AVHRR NDVI and brightness temperature data for routine global monitoring of drought conditions. These early efforts demonstrated the unique perspective that global imagers such as AVHRR could provide for operational drought monitoring through their near-daily, global observations of Earth's land surface. However, the advancement of satellite remote sensing of drought was limited by the relatively few spectral bands of operational global sensors such as AVHRR, along with a relatively short period of observational record. Remote sensing advancements are of paramount importance given the increasing demand for tools that can provide accurate, timely, and integrated information on drought conditions to facilitate proactive decision making (NIDIS, 2007). Satellite-based approaches are key to addressing significant gaps in the spatial and temporal coverage of current surface station instrument networks providing key moisture observations (e.g., rainfall, snow, soil moisture, ground water, and ET) over the United States and globally (NIDIS, 2007). Improved monitoring capabilities will be particularly important given increases in spatial extent, intensity, and duration of drought events observed in some regions of the world, as reported in the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (IPCC, 2007). The risk of drought is anticipated to further increase in some regions in response to climatic changes in the hydrologic cycle related to evaporation, precipitation, air temperature, and snow cover (Burke et al., 2006; IPCC, 2007; USGCRP, 2009). Numerous national, regional, and global efforts such as the Famine and Early Warning System (FEWS), National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), and Group on Earth Observations (GEO), as well as the establishment of regional drought centers (e.g., European Drought Observatory) and geospatial visualization and monitoring systems (e.g, NASA SERVIR) have been undertaken to improve drought monitoring and early warning systems throughout the world. The suite of innovative remote sensing tools that have recently emerged will be looked upon to fill important data and knowledge gaps (NIDIS, 2007; NRC, 2007) to address a wide range of drought-related issues including food security, water scarcity, and human health

The impact of land surface temperature on soil moisture anomaly detection from passive microwave observations

For several years passive microwave observations have been used to retrieve soil moisture from the Earth's surface. Low frequency observations have the most sensitivity to soil moisture, therefore the current Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and future Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) satellite missions observe the Earth's surface in the L-band frequency. In the past, several satellite sensors such as the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E) and WindSat have been used to retrieve surface soil moisture using multi-channel observations obtained at higher microwave frequencies. While AMSR-E and WindSat lack an L-band channel, they are able to leverage multi-channel microwave observations to estimate additional land surface parameters. In particular, the availability of Ka-band observations allows AMSR-E and WindSat to obtain coincident surface temperature estimates required for the retrieval of surface soil moisture. In contrast, SMOS and SMAP carry only a single frequency radiometer and therefore lack an instrument suited to estimate the physical temperature of the Earth. Instead, soil moisture algorithms from these new generation satellites rely on ancillary sources of surface temperature (e.g. re-analysis or near real time data from weather prediction centres). A consequence of relying on such ancillary data is the need for temporal and spatial interpolation, which may introduce uncertainties. Here, two newly-developed, large-scale soil moisture evaluation techniques, the triple collocation (TC) approach and the <i>R</i><sub>value</sub> data assimilation approach, are applied to quantify the global-scale impact of replacing Ka-band based surface temperature retrievals with Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) surface temperature output on the accuracy of WindSat and AMSR-E based surface soil moisture retrievals. Results demonstrate that under sparsely vegetated conditions, the use of MERRA land surface temperature instead of Ka-band radiometric land surface temperature leads to a relative decrease in skill (on average 9.7%) of soil moisture anomaly estimates. However the situation is reversed for highly vegetated conditions where soil moisture anomaly estimates show a relative increase in skill (on average 13.7%) when using MERRA land surface temperature. In addition, a pre-processing technique to shift phase of the modelled surface temperature is shown to generally enhance the value of MERRA surface temperature estimates for soil moisture retrieval. Finally, a very high correlation (<i>R</i><sup>2</sup> = 0.95) and consistency between the two evaluation techniques lends further credibility to the obtained results

A Typical Review of Current and Prospective Microwave and Optical Remote Sensing Datasets for Soil Moisture Retrieval

Soil Moisture content is a vital indicator of both the weather and the water cycle. It has been a long-standing difficulty for the field of remote sensing to make sense of soil moisture's spatial and temporal distribution. For over five decades, researchers across the world have exclusively investigated the optical and microwave datasets for estimating soil moisture by developing various models, and algorithms. Nevertheless, challenges are faced in the consistent retrieval of SM at local, and global scales with higher accuracy in space and time resolution. The review was conducted in-depth, looking at the methods using optical and microwave data to determine soil moisture, and outlining the benefits and drawbacks considering the current needs.  With this research, a new age of widespread use of space technology for remote sensing of soil moisture has been ushered in. The study also acknowledges the scientific challenges of utilizing remote sensing datasets for soil moisture measurement

Intercomparison of Soil Moisture Retrievals From In Situ, ASAR, and ECV SM Data Sets Over Different European Sites

The availability of satellite-derived global surface soil moisture products during the last decade has opened up great opportunities to incorporate these observations into applications in hydrology, meteorology, and climatic modeling. This study evaluates a new global soil moisture product developed under the framework of the European Space Agency (ESA) climate change initiative (CCI), using finer spatial resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and ground-based measurements of soil moisture. The analysis is carried out over selected in situ networks over Ireland, Spain, and Finland with the aim of assessing the temporal representativeness of the coarse-scale CCI essential climate variable (ECV) soil moisture (ECV SM) product in these different areas. A good agreement (correlation coefficient (R) values between 0.53 and 0.92) was observed between the three soil moisture data sets for the Irish and Spanish sites while a reasonable agreement (R values between 0.41 and 0.52) was observed between the SAR and ECV SM soil moisture data sets at the Finnish sites. Overall, the two different satellite-derived products captured the soil moisture temporal variations well and were in good agreement with each other, highlighting the confidence of using the coarse-scale ECV SM product to track soil moisture variability in time

A Method for Objectively Integrating Soil Moisture Satellite Observations and Model Simulations Toward a Blended Drought Index

With satellite soil moisture (SM) retrievals becoming widely and continuously available, we aim to develop a method to objectively integrate the drought indices into one that is more accurate and consistently reliable. The datasets used in this paper include the Noah land surface modelbased SM estimations, AtmosphereLandExchangeInverse modelbased Evaporative Stress Index, and the satellite SM products from the Advanced Scatterometer, WindSat, Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity, and Soil Moisture Operational Product System. Using the Triple Collocation Error Model (TCEM) to quantify the uncertainties of these data, we developed an optically blended drought index (BDI_b) that objectively integrates drought estimations with the lowest TCEMderived rootmeansquareerrors in this paper. With respect to the reported drought records and the drought monitoring benchmarks including the U.S. Drought Monitor, the Palmer Drought Severity Index and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index products, the BDI_b was compared with the sample average blending drought index (BDI_s) and the RMSEweighted average blending drought indices (BDI_w). Relative to the BDI_s and the BDI_w, the BDI_b performs more consistently with the drought monitoring benchmarks. With respect to the official drought records, the developed BDI_b shows the best performance on tracking drought development in terms of time evolution and spatial patterns of 2010Russia, 2011USA, 2013New Zealand droughts and other reported agricultural drought occurrences over the 20092014 period. These results suggest that model simulations and remotely sensed observations of SM can be objectively translated into useful information for drought monitoring and early warning, in turn can reduce drought risk and impacts

Operational assimilation of ASCAT surface soil wetness at the Met Office

Currently, no extensive, near real time, global soil moisture observation network exists. Therefore, the Met Office global soil moisture analysis scheme has instead used observations of screen temperature and humidity. A number of new space-borne remote sensing systems, operating at microwave frequencies, have been developed that provide a more direct retrieval of surface soil moisture. These systems are attractive since they provide global data coverage and the horizontal resolution is similar to weather forecasting models. Several studies show that measurements of normalised backscatter (surface soil wetness) from the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) on the meteorological operational (MetOp) satellite contain good quality information about surface soil moisture. This study describes methods to convert ASCAT surface soil wetness measurements to volumetric surface soil moisture together with bias correction and quality control. A computationally efficient nudging scheme is used to assimilate the ASCAT volumetric surface soil moisture data into the Met Office global soil moisture analysis. This ASCAT nudging scheme works alongside a soil moisture nudging scheme that uses observations of screen temperature and humidity. Trials, using the Met Office global Unified Model, of the ASCAT nudging scheme show a positive impact on forecasts of screen temperature and humidity for the tropics, North America and Australia. A comparison with in-situ soil moisture measurements from the US also indicates that assimilation of ASCAT surface soil wetness improves the soil moisture analysis. Assimilation of ASCAT surface soil wetness measurements became operational during July 2010