SMEX03 Soil Moisture, Meteorological, and Vegetation Data: Brazil

Data Contributors SANO, EDSON E. ASSAD, EDUARDO D. Parameters ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > AIR TEMPERATURE ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > HUMIDITY PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT SOILS > SOIL BULK DENSITY SOILS > SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENT SOILS > SOIL TEMPERATURE VEGETATION > VEGETATION COVER Instruments CAMERAS PROBES RAIN GAUGES SOIL MOISTURE PROBE SOIL TEMPERATURE PROBE THERMOMETERS

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Notice to Data Users: The documentation for this data set was provided solely by the Principal Investigator(s) and was not further developed, thoroughly reviewed, or edited by NSIDC. Thus, support for this data set may be limited.

This data set contains soil temperature, soil moisture content, and leaf water content data obtained over the Barreiras region of Brazil as part of the Soil Moisture Experiment 2003 (SMEX03). An extensive collection of photographs documenting the regional study areas is also included. Soil and leaf samples were collected from 2 through 8 December 2003 and photographs were obtained throughout the field campaign conducted throughout December 2003. The Barreiras region is located in the western part of the Bahia State, Brazil, and presents a mixture of Cerrado and Caatinga vegetation covers. Cultivated pastures and extensive annual crops such as soybean, maize, and cotton are the major land use classes found in the regional study area. Twelve sampling sites were selected based on a Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) scene and on two preliminary field surveys conducted in early 2003. Meteorological stations were installed in three sampling sites during the entire campaign. The volume of the data set is approximately 50 megabytes. Data are provided in a single spreadsheet file and images are provided as JPEG files. Data are available via FTP.

These data were collected as part of a validation study for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E). AMSR-E is a mission instrument launched aboard NASA's Aqua Satellite on 04 May 2002. AMSR-E validation studies linked to SMEX are designed to evaluate the accuracy of AMSR-E soil moisture data. Specific validation objectives include assessing and refining soil moisture algorithm performance; verifying soil moisture estimation accuracy; investigating the effects of vegetation, surface temperature, topography, and soil texture on soil moisture accuracy; and determining the regions that are useful for AMSR-E soil moisture measurements.

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Data Citation

The following example shows how to cite the use of this data set in a publication. For more information, see our Use and Copyright Web page.

Sanos, E.E. and E.D. Assad. 2009. SMEX03 Soil Moisture, Meteorological, and Vegetation Data: Brazil. [indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center.

See Also

• AMSR-E Validation Data at NSIDC
• AMSR-E/Aqua Data at NSIDC
• Contact User Services