SMOS-IC

Soil Moisture research product from SMOS-IC

The SMOS INRA-CESBIO (SMOS-IC) algorithm was designed by INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) and CESBIO (Centre d’Etudes Spatiales de la BIOsphère) to perform global retrievals of SM and L-VOD. SMOS-IC is based on the two-parameter inversion of the L-MEB model as defined in Wigneron et al. (2017) and considering the pixel as homogeneous.

So, SMOS-IC was designed on the same basis as the level 2 SM algorithm but using some simplifications. Specifically, SMOS-IC does not account for corrections associated with the treatment of retrievals over regions with a heterogeneous land cover (forested areas), the antenna pattern and the complex SMOS viewing angle geometry.

One of the main goals of the SMOS-IC product was thus to be as independent as possible from auxiliary data so as to be more robust and less impacted by potential uncertainties in the afore-mentioned corrections.

The SMOS-IC algorithm and dataset is described in Fernandez-Moran et al. (2017). The Soil Moisture product available is version 2, and is provided in the 25km EASEv2 grid, as netcdf format.

SMOS-IC is scientific product delivered by the CATDS, i.e. meaning it is not an operational product updated on a daily basis for the time being.

Contact : Jean-Pierre Wigneron, jean-pierre.wigneron@inra.fr

References :

  • Wigneron J-P, Y. Kerr, P. Waldteufel, K. Saleh, M.-J. Escorihuela, P. Richaume, P. Ferrazzoli, P. de Rosnay, R. Gurney, J.-C. Calvet, J.P. Grant, M. Guglielmetti, B. Hornbuckle, C. Mätzler, T. Pellarin, M. Schwank, 'L-band Microwave Emission of the Biosphere (L-MEB) Model: Description and calibration against experimental data sets over crop fields', Remote Sens. Env., 107, p. 639-655, 2007.
  • Fernandez-Moran, R., Wigneron, J.-P., De Lannoy, G., Lopez-Baeza, E., Parrens, M., Mialon, A., Mahmoodi, A., Al-Yaari, A., Bircher, S., Al Bitar, A., Richaume, P., Kerr, Y., A new calibration of the effective scattering albedo and soil roughness parameters in the SMOS SM retrieval algorithm, Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation, 62, 27–38, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2017.05.013
  • Fernandez-Moran R., A. Al-Yaari, A. Mialon, A. Mahmoodi, A. Al Bitar, G. De Lannoy, N. Rodriguez-Fernandez, E. Lopez-Baeza, Y. Kerr and J.-P. Wigneron, "SMOS-IC: An Alternative SMOS Soil Moisture and Vegetation Optical Depth Product", Remote Sensing, 9, 457; doi:10.3390/rs9050457, 2017
  • Wigneron, J.-P., Li, X., Frappart F., Fan L., Al-Yaari A., De Lannoy G., Liu X., Wang M., Le Masson E., Moisy C., SMOS-IC data record of soil moisture and L-VOD: historical development, applications and perspectives, Remote Sens. Env., 254, 112238, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.112238, 2021.

Product access

FTP access

The SMOS-IC research product is freely available on FTP/HTTPS:
ftp ftp.ifremer.fr
user: ext-catds-cecsm
password: catds2010
chdir: Land_products/L3_SMOS_IC_Soil_Moisture
or ftp://ext-catds-cecsm:catds2010@ftp.ifremer.fr/Land_products/L3_SMOS_IC_Soil_Moisture (no longer works in the recent versions of most of the web browers)
or https://data.catds.fr/cecsm/Land_products/L3_SMOS_IC_Soil_Moisture/

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