CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS NOAA Use of Soil Moisture Products Presented to CGMS-43 Working Group 2 session, agenda item 10 Author: Jerry Zhan

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Introduction  Several research/operational satellite sensors are capable of producing global soil moisture data products since 1978  More than half dozen soil moisture products have been generated, but they are not consistent in accuracy and availability  NASA SMAP is expected to provide the best soil moisture products  NESDIS Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) is developed for timely consistently processing these data products for use in NOAA operations and research  Preliminary testing of SMOPS data in NCEP GFS demonstrated soil moisture impact on GFS forecasts Slide: 2

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Satellite Soil Moisture Remote Sensors AM Operational PM Research ESA SMOS NASA/JAXA:TRMM: TMI NASA Aqua: AMSR-E PM Operational AM Reseaerch EUMETSAT MetOp-A: ASCAT CMA Fengyun-3A: MWRI NASA/JAXA GCOM-W1: AMSR-2 CMA Fengyun-3A: MWRI EUMETSAT MetOp-B: ASCAT CMA Fengyun-3C: MWRI NASA/JAXA GPM: GMI NASA SMAP NRL WindSat Slide: 3

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS NASA Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP) Mission  Launched on 31 January 2015  Active L-band radar – High-resolution 1-3km SM products  Passive L-band radiometer – SM accuracy  Active-passive combined – SM accuracy  Best satellite soil moisture – Enhance drought monitoring – NWP initialization  NOAA Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) is prepared to ingest SMAP data for NOAA operations Slide: 4

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS NESDIS Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) Data Flow Start Read PCF file End new input file run? NoYes TB or SM data ? 6 hour / daily or Archive? Read ASCAT / SMOS SM Read footprint TBs End of input file? SMOPS retrieval algorithm Merge gridded SM files Pack SMOPS output data products and generate status report SM TB 6 hour/daily archive Yes No Read ancillary data Gridded ASCAT/ SMOS SM files Gridded WindSat/AMSR2 SM files Grid ASCAT / SMOS SM Gridded Merged SM files Global Gridded 6 hour/Daily Soil Moisture Data Product Repeat branch 1, 2, 3 for all data after 2 days * * All data acquired within the 6 hour or whole day time period arrived in the past 48 hours Slide: 5

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS WindSat SMOS ASCAT Blended AMSR2 SMAP NCEP GFS/NAM NESDIS SMOPS provides and blends global SM data products for NCEP NWP models AFWA USDA NASA NESDIS Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) Data Products Slide: 6

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Impact of Assimilating SMOPS Blended Soil Moisture on GFS Forecasts Precipitation Skill Scores over CONUS of GFS 1 day forecasts Fcst w/o SM DA Fcst with SM DA Slide: 7

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Impact of Assimilating SMOPS Blended Soil Moisture on GFS Forecasts Precipitation Skill Scores over CONUS of GFS 3 day forecasts Fcst w/o SM DA Fcst with SM DA Slide: 8

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Slide: 9 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS  For broader applications of satellite soil moisture data products, issues on data latency, spatial scale, and consistency need to be addressed  Comprehensive accuracy assessment of impact of soil moisture observations on applications is needed  Lack of continuity of similar satellite soil moisture observations could be a major defect for operational applications (e.g. NWP, drought and flood monitoring)  Reference to HLPP…. Key issues of relevance to CGMS:

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Slide: 10 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS  ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) has started to develop a merged soil moisture data product for a certain time period for use primarily by EUMETSAT and ECMWF researchers while SMOPS is primarily providing near real time soil moisture data for NOAA NCEP NWP and drought monitoring applications. Collaboration between the two groups (ESA CCI and NESDIS SMOPS) has been started by sharing codes/ algorithms  CGMS should encourage collaborations between different research and operation groups for a globally consistent soil moisture data set.  Satellite continuity issue may need attention from operational agencies for development and application of consistent soil moisture data products To be considered by CGMS:

CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-25 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Summary  NOAA-NESDIS has developed and made operational a global soil moisture product system called SMOPS and is prepared to process NASA SMAP data  The primary user of the products from SMOPS is NCEP NWP models while DoD AFWA and USDA are using SMOPS output of ASCAT and SMOS data products for their NWP and drought monitoring respectively  Issues on satellite continuity, data latency, accuracy, consistency and spatial scales need to be addressed for broader applications  Collaborations should be supported for developing the best global soil moisture product using all available satellite observations Slide: 11