Scientists
Research Grants
Scientific Publications
Informatics Research
NSIDC Scientific Expeditions
Scientists blog from Antarctica and provide a glimpse of what it's like to do research in the field. 
What's hot in the news around climate and sea ice and what are scientists talking about now? SMAP Level 2 and Level 3 soil moisture products will version up in mid-October of 2021. At that time additional products may also be reprocessed. Should you have questions, please contact user services at nsidc@nsidc.org. Thank you for your patience while we update the data.
Data Set ID:
SPL1BTB
SMAP L1B Radiometer Half-Orbit Time-Ordered Brightness Temperatures, Version 5
This Level-1B (L1B) product provides calibrated estimates of time-ordered geolocated brightness temperatures measured by the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) passive microwave radiometer. SMAP L-band brightness temperatures are referenced to the Earth's surface with undesired and erroneous radiometric sources removed.
This is the most recent version of these data.
Version Summary:
Changes to this version include:
- An improved calibration methodology was applied to Level-1 brightness temperatures, which uses:
* the internal instrument reference load (instead of the global ocean as in V4)
* deep space measurements during monthly cold sky maneuvers and special cold sky maneuvers with stable open-ocean background to concurrently retrieve all calibration parameters
* a longer temporal baseline of cold sky records.
For the full major and minor version history, go to https://nsidc.org/data/smap/data_versions.
COMPREHENSIVE Level of Service
Data: Data integrity and usability verified; data customization services available for select data
Documentation: Key metadata and comprehensive user guide available
User Support: Assistance with data access and usage; guidance on use of data in tools and data customization services
|
Geographic Coverage |
Other Access Options
Other Access Options
Close
Once you have logged in, you will be able to click and download files via a Web browser. There are also options for downloading via a command line or client. For more detailed instructions, please see Options Available for Bulk Downloading Data from HTTPS with Earthdata Login. Earthdata Search: This application allows you to search, visualize, and access data across thousands of Earth science data sets. Additional customization services are available for select data sets, including subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection. Worldview: This application allows you to interactively browse global satellite imagery within hours of it being acquired. You can also save it, share it, and download the underlying data. Subscription Service: Subscribe to have new data automatically delivered to you as they become available at NSIDC. Subscriptions apply only to future data as they are delivered to NSIDC; they cannot be used to receive data already in NSIDC's archive. |
As a condition of using these data, you must cite the use of this data set using the following citation. For more information, see our Use and Copyright Web page.
Piepmeier, J. R., P. Mohammed, J. Peng, E. J. Kim, G. De Amici, J. Chaubell, and C. Ruf. 2020. SMAP L1B Radiometer Half-Orbit Time-Ordered Brightness Temperatures, Version 5. [Indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.5067/ZHHBN1KQLI20. [Date Accessed].How To
Programmatic Data Access Guide
Data from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) can be accessed directly from our HTTPS file system or through our Application Programming Interface (API). Our API offers you the ability to order data using specific temporal and spatial filters... read more
How to learn more about SMAP ancillary data
SMAP Ancillary data sets are used to produce SMAP Level-1, -2, -3, and -4 standard data products. Several of these ancillary data sets are produced by external organizations, such as NOAA, the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation... read more
Visualize NSIDC data as WMS layers with ArcGIS and Google Earth
NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS) provides up to date, full resolution imagery for selected NSIDC DAAC data sets. ... read more
Filter and order from a data set web page
Many NSIDC data set web pages provide the ability to search and filter data with spatial and temporal contstraints using a map-based interface. This article outlines how to order NSIDC DAAC data using advanced searching and filtering.
Step 1: Go to a data set web page
This article will use the... read more
How do I convert an HDF5/HDF-EOS5 file into binary format?
Visualize and download NSIDC DAAC data with NASA Worldview
NASA Worldview uses the Global Imagery Browse Service (GIBS) to provide up to date, full resolution imagery for select NSIDC DAAC data sets (see attachments below). The map interface allows users to... read more
NSIDC DAAC Data Subscription Requests
Data subscriptions are available for select NSIDC DAAC data collections (found below). Our subscription service automatically sends you new data as they are delivered from active NASA satellite missions. The service cannot be applied to past data already archived at NSIDC. This service is... read more
FAQ
What are the latencies for SMAP radiometer data sets?
The following table describes both the required and actual latencies for the different SMAP radiometer data sets. Latency is defined as the time (# days, hh:mm:ss) from data acquisition to product generation.
Short name
Title
Latency
Required
# days hh:mm:ss
Actual (... read more
