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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? On Monday, December 16th between 11 am and 2 pm MDT, the following data collections may not be available due to planned system maintenance: AMSR-E, Aquarius, ASO, High Mountain Asia, IceBridge, ICESat/GLAS, ICESat-2, MEaSUREs, MODIS, NISE, SMAP, SnowEx, and VIIRS.
Data Set ID:
SPL2SMAP
SMAP L2 Radar/Radiometer Half-Orbit 9 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture, Version 2
This Level-2 (L2) soil moisture product provides gridded estimates of global land surface conditions retrieved by both the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) radar and radiometer during 6:00 a.m. descending half-orbit passes. Input SMAP L-band backscatter and brightness temperature data used to derive soil moisture are resampled to an Earth-fixed, global, cylindrical 9 km Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid, Version 2.0 (EASE-Grid 2.0). A variety of ancillary data are also used as input, such as surface temperature, vegetation water content (VWC), and soil texture.
Note: These data are Beta-release quality, meaning that they have not undergone full validation and may still contain significant errors.
There is a more recent version of these data.
Version Summary:
First public data release
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Geographic Coverage |
No access options.
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.
Entekhabi, D., N. Das, E. G. Njoku, J. T. Johnson, and J. Shi. 2015. SMAP L2 Radar/Radiometer Half-Orbit 9 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture, Version 2. [Indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.5067/LZIP2VM2GIA5. [Date Accessed].How To
Programmatic access to data with services such as subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection
This article provides a step-by-step getting started guide to utilizing an Application Programming Interface, or API, for programmatic access to data from the NSIDC Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) based on spatial and temporal filters, as well as subsetting, reformatting, and... read more
How to import and geolocate SMAP Level-1C and Level-2 data in ENVI
The following are instructions on how to import and geolocate SMAP Level-1C HDF5 data in ENVI.
Testing notes
Software: ENVI
Software version: 5.3 and above. If using version 5.3, service pack 5.3.1 is needed.
Platform: Windows 7
Data set: SMAP L1C... read more
How do I search, order, and customize SMAP data using Earthdata Search?
In this step-by-step tutorial, we will demonstrate how to search, order, and customize NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive, or SMAP data using the NASA Earthdata Search application. NASA Earthdata search provides an interactive map-based search environment where you can filter your results based on... 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
FAQ
What data subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection services are available for SMAP data?
The following table describes the data subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection services that are currently available for SMAP data via the NASA Earthdata Search tool and a Data Subscription... read more
