CCI Soil Moisture

Climate Data Records of soil moisture are fundamental for improving our understanding of long-term dynamics in the coupled water, energy, and carbon cycles over land. To respond to this need, the European Space Agency (ESA) has supported the development and production of the first multi-decadal, global satellite-observed soil moisture (SM) dataset as part of its Climate Change Initiative (CCI) program. This product, named ESA CCI SM, combines various single-sensor active and passive microwave soil moisture products into three harmonised Climate Data Records: a merged active microwave, a merged passive microwave, and a combined active+passive microwave product. The ESA CCI SM project is currently in the extension phase called CCI+.

ESA CCI SM v06.1 - Released in April 2021

The most recent version of the ESA CCI SM dataset is v06.1. This new product introduces GPM and FY-3B for the first time, extends the dataset to the end of 2020, includes an additional break-adjusted product based on Preimesberger et al. (2020) and the other various updates have led to the best correspondance with ISMN of any CCI product to date. To download the data, visit the website: ESA CCI SM website.

ESA CCI SM v06.1 COMBINED soil moisture anomalies for 2020 by month (reference period: 1991-2010) (click for enlarged animation)

Project goals

The objective of CCI Soil Moisture is to produce the most complete and most consistent global soil moisture data record based on active and passive microwave sensors. The CCI+ phase has so far produced two major dataset releases: v05.2 and v06.1. The next planned evolution, v07, will focus on improving the uncertainty analysis associated with the product, incorporating day time observations and reducing the dependency of the product on modeled data.

Funding

• ESA CCI Programme

Project duration

• CCI +: March 2019 - March 2022
• Phase 1 and 2: January 2011 - December 2018

Partners

In CCI+ (in addition to TU Wien):

• CESBIO, France
• Earth Observation Data Center (EODC), Austria
• ETH Zürich, Switzerland
• VanderSat, Netherlands

Additional partners from Phase 1 and 2:

• AWST GmbH, Austria
• Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI)
• GeoVille GmbH, Austria
• Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU)
• University College Cork (UCC)

Main roles of CLIMERS

• Scientific lead
• Level 1 and Level 2 algorithm developments for scatterometers
• Development of the merging algorithms
• Development scientific software prototypes

CLIMERS members involved

• Wouter Dorigo (science lead)
• Tracy Scanlon (technical lead, quality assessment)
• Wolfgang Preimesberger  (inhomogeneity testing; software development)
• Leander Mösinger  (software development)

Project Highlights

• New peer-reviewed paper: Evolution of the ESA CCI Soil Moisture climate data records and their underlying merging methodology

• Final Workshop for Phase 2 held at TU Wien

• Success stories from 7 years of ESA CCI Soil Moisture

• Data release of ESA CCI SM v05.2, including SMAP data for the first time

Related Publications and Articles

For a full list of publications related to the ESA CCI SM product, please see the ESA CCI SM webpage.

• Preimesberger, W., Scanlon, T., Su, C., Gruber, A., Dorigo, W. (2021), Homogenization of structural breaks in the global ESA CCI Soil Moisture multisatellite climate data record, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 2845-2862, April 2021, https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2020.3012896
• Gruber, A., Scanlon, T., van der Schalie, R., Wagner, W., and Dorigo, W. (2019). Evolution of the ESA CCI Soil Moisture Climate Data Records and their underlying merging methodology. Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2019-21
• "Nearly four decades of soil moisture data now available" (ESA Space for our Climate)
• Dorigo, W., Wagner, W., Albergel, C., Albrecht, F., Balsamo, G., Brocca, L., Chung, D., Ertl, M., Forkel, M., Gruber, A., Haas, E., Hamer, P.D., Hirschi, M., Ikonen, J., de Jeu, R., Kidd, R., Lahoz, W., Liu, Y.Y., Miralles, D., Mistelbauer, T., Nicolai-Shaw, N., Parinussa, R., Pratola, C., Reimer, C., van der Schalie, R., Seneviratne, S.I., Smolander, T., & Lecomte, P. (2017). ESA CCI Soil Moisture for improved Earth system understanding: State-of-the art and future directions. Remote Sensing of Environment, 203, 185-215, doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2017.07.001
• Liu, Y.Y., Dorigo, W.A., Parinussa, R.M., de Jeu, R.A.M. , Wagner, W., McCabe, M.F., Evans, J.P., van Dijk, A.I.J.M. (2012). Trend-preserving blending of passive and active microwave soil moisture retrievals, Remote Sensing of Environment, 123, 280-297, doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2012.03.014.
• Liu, Y. Y., Parinussa, R. M., Dorigo, W. A., De Jeu, R. A. M., Wagner, W., van Dijk, A. I. J. M., McCabe, M. F., Evans, J. P. (2011). Developing an improved soil moisture dataset by blending passive and active microwave satellite-based retrievals. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 15, 425-436, doi:10.5194/hess-15-425-2011. Download article
• Wagner, W., Dorigo, W., R. de Jeu, D. Fernandez, J. Benveniste, E. Haas, M. Ertl (2012) Fusion of active and passive microwave observations to create an Essential Climate Variable data record on soil moisture, ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (ISPRS Annals), Volume I-7, XXII ISPRS Congress, Melbourne, Australia, 25 August-1 September 2012, 315-321.
• Gruber, A., Dorigo, W.A., Crow, W., Wagner, W. (2017). Triple Collocation-Based Merging of Satellite Soil Moisture Retrievals. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 55, no. 12, pp. 6780 - 6792. doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2017.2734070 

Official project URL

• http://www.esa-soilmoisture-cci.org