ESA’S SOIL MOISTURE AND OCEAN SALINITY MISSION MISSION STATUS AND PERFORMANCE Susanne Mecklenburg (ESA) SMOS mission manager Ocean Salinity Science and Salinity Remote Sensing Workshop UK Met Office, November 2014

ESA EO MISSIONS SMOS mission operations have recently been extended to 2017 by ESA (Feb) and CNES (end of year).

THE MISSION: OBJECTIVES & SCIENCE REQUIREMENTS The mission objective is to provide global measurements of two key variables in the water cycle - soil moisture and ocean salinity. AccuracySpatial resolution Revisit time Soil Moisture 4% volumetric soil moisture km1-3 days Ocean salinity psu for single observation 0.1 psu for a day average for a open ocean area of 200x200 km 200 km10-30 days The science requirements THE MISSION Launch - 2 November 2009 Orbit - ~ altitude of 758 km; inclination of 98.44°; low-Earth orbit, polar, sun- synchronous, quasi-circular, dusk-dawn (6am/6pm), 23-day repeat cycle, 3-day sub-cycle Operations shared between ESA (overall mission management and ground segment operations) and CNES (responsible for platform operations) THE PAYLOAD MIRAS, the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis instrument, is a passive microwave 2-D interferometric radiometer measuring in L-Band (1.4GHz, 21cm); 69 antennas are equally distributed over the 3 arms and the central structure.

SATELLITE AND PAYLOAD STATUS Degraded data = 1.023% (since May 2010) Lost data = 0.088% (since May 2010) Monthly loss or degraded data Cumulative loss or degraded data  Platform fully operational, all sub- systems in good health and no sign of degradation (remaining propellant sufficient for another 120 years in orbit!)  Payload status & performance excellent after ~5 years of operations with some well- identified anomalies with recovery procedures in place High data availability  Overall mission performance 98.9%  Calibration: 1.68% of observations (Status Oct 2014)

GROUND SEGMENT OPERATIONS STATUS Very reliable ground segment operations.  Ground segment continuously acquires and processes data up to level 2 (soil moisture and ocean salinity) in 99% of time and provides level 1 data in NRT.  Data available to science users within 1-3 days from sensing, for NRT within 3 hours from sensing (~90% of time).  2 nd reprocessing campaign in 2014 with reprocessed data up to level 2 available beginning 2015:  Based on level 1 v600  Start of level 1 reprocessing in July 2014  Start level 2 soil moisture and sea surface salinity reprocessing autumn  Reprocessed data available in spring 2015  New data products (soil moisture in NRT, sea ice thickness) to be included into portfolio. SMOS receiving stations at ESAC. Increasing uptake of SMOS data in science community.

DATA PRODUCTS latency maturity scientific operational NRT day month L2 Soil Moisture L2 Ocean Salinity L1 brightness temperatures Sea Ice Thickness Hurricane Wind Speed Soil Freeze/Thaw Soil Frost Depth Snow Depth on Sea Ice Plant Available Water Vegetation Opacity Forest Height Vegetation Water Content Net Ecosystem Exchange Soil Moisture based on NN Soil Moisture based on NN L3/L4 soil moisture and ocean salinity

DATA PRODUCTS latency maturity scientific operational NRT day month L2 Soil Moisture L2 Ocean Salinity L1 brightness temperatures Sea Ice Thickness Hurricane Wind Speed Soil Freeze/Thaw Soil Frost Depth Snow Depth on Sea Ice Plant Available Water Vegetation Opacity Forest Height Vegetation Water Content Net Ecosystem Exchange Soil Moisture based on NN Soil Moisture based on NN L3/L4 soil moisture and ocean salinity Available from ESA  NRT L1 TB: BUFR (ECMWF)  NRT L1 TB LIGHT (full angular resolution, reduced grid, only land coverage, no averaging of TB in antenna frame)  available from GTS and EUMETCast  NRT L1 TB: BUFR (ECMWF)  NRT L1 TB LIGHT (full angular resolution, reduced grid, only land coverage, no averaging of TB in antenna frame)  available from GTS and EUMETCast

DATA PRODUCTS latency maturity scientific operational NRT day month L2 Soil Moisture L2 Ocean Salinity L1 brightness temperatures Sea Ice Thickness Hurricane Wind Speed Soil Freeze/Thaw Soil Frost Depth Snow Depth on Sea Ice Plant Available Water Vegetation Opacity Forest Height Vegetation Water Content Net Ecosystem Exchange Soil Moisture based on NN Soil Moisture based on NN L3/L4 soil moisture and ocean salinity Available from ESA New products implemented by ESA, available from ECMWF and University of Hamburg

DATA PRODUCTS latency maturity scientific operational NRT day month L2 Soil Moisture L2 Ocean Salinity L1 brightness temperatures Sea Ice Thickness Hurricane Wind Speed Soil Freeze/Thaw Soil Frost Depth Snow Depth on Sea Ice Plant Available Water Vegetation Opacity Forest Height Vegetation Water Content Net Ecosystem Exchange Soil Moisture based on NN Soil Moisture based on NN L3/L4 soil moisture and ocean salinity Available from ESA New products to be implemented by ESA, available from ECMWF and University of Hamburg French (CATDS: and Spanish (CP34: bec.cmima.csic.es/) National Centres bec.cmima.csic.es/

SMOS SEA ICE THICKNESS Feb 2013  SMOS brightness temperatures can be used to retrieve sea ice thickness up to ~ 0.5-1m  Semi-empirical retrieval based on TB intensities:  Using thermodynamic and radiative transfer model  Accounts for ice temperature (surface air temperature from JRA- 25 Re-Analyse ) and ice salinity (SSS from weekly climatology)  Complementary with ESA’s CryoSat data.  Operational users have signalled interest and using data already (DMI, MetNo, ECMWF).  Daily maps generated by University of Hamburg and disseminated with latency of 24 hours, since winter season 2010/11 till now through:

SEA ICE THICKNESS SEA ICE THICKNESS (VI) Validation of SMOS sea ice product March 2014 Most comprehensive data set to validate sea ice thickness Data analysis on-going

SMOS IN DATA ASSIMILATION CTRL - SMOS Positive impact of SMOS brightness temperatures in ECMWF’s data assimilation system for soil moisture analysis (© ECMWF) Assimilation of brightness temperatures for improved hydrological modelling and flood forecasting has started (U.Gent, CESBIO); Initial DA experiments showed a positive impact of SMOS observations on predicted stream flow (© U.Gent) Carbon cycle: Gross Primary Production estimated by the BETHY model before (left) and after (right) assimilation of SMOS Level 3 soil moisture data in gC/m2 for the period Credits: FastOpt

1.Need of synergistic scientific exploitation of mission data  SMOS + future observational data only available during mission extension for synergistic use in scientific applications (e.g. with SMAP, Sentinels etc)  Cal/Val activities (including campaigns to consolidate new data products) 2.Need of enhanced process understanding on time-scales exceeding the initial mission lifetime  Longer time series allow observing and understanding different processes that were not necessarily targeted in the original mission design (e.g. El Nino and El Nina signals in SSS, draught pattern monitoring, generation of harmonized multi-mission data sets for climate monitoring)  CCI: Soil moisture and ocean salinity have been identified as ECV, with a need for long-term measurements for such measurements.  Merged data products: Increased confidence in merging SMOS data with other L-band observations for the generation of long-term data sets and thematic data records. 3.Pre-operational need for continuous observation data sets: Operational and scientific users have expressed the need for data continuity in (semi-) operational applications following the maturation of the SMOS data products. OBJECTIVES FOR EXTENDED MISSION FROM PB-EO PAPER

The initial mission objective to provide global measurements of two key variables in the water cycle - soil moisture and ocean salinity - remains fully applicable during the extended period. However a review of the mission requirements over ocean and the appropriate validation procedure will be performed. The following extended missions objectives are defined: 1.SMOS brightness temperatures, soil moisture, and ocean salinity observations shall be analysed with respect to geophysical processes related to the water cycle occurring on time scales exceeding the nominal mission lifetime of 3 (5) years. 2.Daily sea ice thickness estimates based on MIRAS observations shall be provided for the Northern Hemisphere with a spatial resolution of km 2 up to maximum values of 50 cm. EXTENDED MISSION OBJECTIVES FROM PB-EO PAPER

© Craig Donlon  One platform combining different functionalities  Data quality control: where does information come from for SSS at particular grid point, what went into this particular SSS value  Match-up data base: satellite versus in- situ data  Ancillary data: Collocation with “other” ocean data (SST, altimetry etc)  A tool for anyone to use: ESLs and external users alike, i.e. accessible for SSS (and beyond) community  Implementation  Needs to be located at existing data hub (e.g. CATDS)  Start regionally/Pilot-pre-TEP: SPURS, our favourite area in the Pacific, Atlantic  Use existing systems (FELIX) and ATBDs (IFREMER) as start up PRE-TEP SALINITY

DATA QUALITY & REPROCESSING LEVEL 1 BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURES & RFI (T x +T y )/2 Current Level 1 New L1 V6 Orbital stability, latitudinal slope 6.9 mk/lat deg4 mK/lat deg Seasonal stability0.4 K0.12 K Long term stability: yearly drift  0.27 K/year  0.01 K/year LEVEL 1  Significant improvements regarding drifts/stability and spatial biases in new Level 1 processor.  New processor implements correct computation of the 4th Stokes parameter and improved RFI flagging.  Remaining problem: land-sea contamination RFI situation over Europe and worldwide much improved.

Working closely with national authorities Japan: tests on-going with national authorities after formal complaint to ITU to understand sources and switch them off. The Turkish authorities (BTK) have initiated actions and seven RFIs were switched of during the reporting period. There are however still more than 30 RFIs active, and three of them are very strong (BT > 5,000 K).

DATA QUALITY & REPROCESSING LEVEL 2 SEA SURFACE SALINITY Required accuracy  psu for single observation  0.1 psu for a day average for a open ocean area of 200x200 km Status now: approaching scientific requirements Improvements for 2 nd reprocessing (processor V6XX)  Main improvements will come from improved Level 1 data  Improved estimation of Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) for descending passes and their use in the SSS retrieval  Better RFI detection and flagging  Improved roughness model 3 (empirical) Future work  Optimising OTT (Ocean Target Transformation) approach for residual bias and long-term drift removal.  Better galactic noise scattering model.  Increasing validity of roughness correction models.  Corrected Level 1 product tailored for oceanographic application. Regional comparison between SMOS level 3 data (here CATDS, CEC-LOCEAN, CEC- IFREMER and CATDS/OPER) and in-situ data including ARGO profiler, moorings and TSGSSS data (1-10m depth). The numbers given show the rms difference between Level 3 data and in-situ observations averaged over 100km-1 month. Credit: LOCEAN, IFREMER, CATDS.

SMOS FOLLOW-ON & L-BAND CONTINUITY REQUIREMENTS COLLECTION FROM THE SCIENCE/OPERATIONAL COMMUNITY  Recommendations from science workshops indicate clear need for L-Band continuity (Living Planet, SMOS-Aquarius WS)  ISSI forum on “Continuity of microwave observations in L- band for operational and climate applications”  Regular interaction with EUMETSAT community PREPARING MISSION CONCEPTS  SMOS follow-on concept: SMOSOps and SUPER MIRAS (ESA led)  SMOS NEXT (CNES led)  STSE study on concept for future water cycle mission BUILDING UP OPERATIONAL USER COMMUNITY  Operational application for SMOS data in NWP (ECMWF, proven) and hydrological forecasting (on- going), working with WMO  Availability of SMOS L1 data in NRT  L2 soil moisture NRT data product planned (neural networks)  Suit of further operational data products on-going: hurricane tracking, sea ice thickness etc INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION  Close collaboration with the counterpart L-Band missions: Aquarius and SMAP teams  CEOS virtual constellation SMOS CONTRIBUTING TO ECVS Soil moisture and ocean salinity have been defined as Essential Climate Variables (ECV) by GCOS in its second Adequacy Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the global climate observing systems Way forward towards L-Band continuity to be identified over coming years Follow–on

UPCOMING SMOS EVENTS 2 nd SMOS science conference (25-29 May 2015) and SMOS training course (18-22 May 2015) ESA-ESAC, Villafranca (near Madrid), Spain Deadline for abstracts: 16 January 2015 Remote Sensing of Environment Special Issue on ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission – Achievements and novel applications after 5 years in orbit (Focus on evolution of novel data products and applications & potential of SMOS data for the generation of long-term data sets) Submission deadline June 2015

1.Excellent status of the mission, including space and ground segment 2.Timely provision of high quality data to science and NRT data users 3.New/operational products emerging 4.Operational agencies use SMOS data! 5.2 nd mission reprocessing planned for 2014 with improved L1 and L2 processors, data available spring Note upcoming SMOS events! SUMMARY

THANK YOU Susanne Mecklenburg