Soil Moisture Retrieval from Brightness Temperature using Passive Microwave Remote Sensing

Soil Moisture (SM) data are often a derived product of Microwave Remote Sensing (MRS) satellites. The brightness temperature (T b ) however, is a basic quantity associated with the satellites in the Microwave range and is available as a common data product from all MRS satellites. In this paper an attempt has been made to develop an algorithm to retrieve SM information directly from the T b values obtained from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on Earth Observing (AMSR-E) System. Analysis of T b and SM data is done to find the most suitable frequency band and polarization at which the conversion from T b to SM is possible. Out of all the frequencies from the satellite, the T b values at 6 GHz frequency with horizontal polarization have been found to be most suitable for SM retrieval. The algorithm designed is found to be applicable for T b to SM conversion for any season. Keywords : Microwave remote sensing, soil moisture, AMSR-E, brightness temperature, passive sensors.