SMAP L2 Radiometer Half-Orbit 36 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture, Version 5
Data set id:
SPL2SMP
DOI: 10.5067/SODMLCE6LGLL
There is a more recent version of these data.
Version Summary

Changes to this version include:




  • Level-1B water-corrected brightness temperatures are used in passive soil moisture retrieval. This procedure corrects for anomalous soil moisture values seen near coastlines in the previous version and should result in less rejected data due to waterbody contamination. Five new data fields accommodate this correction: grid_surface_status, surface_water_fraction_mb_h, surface_water_fraction_mb_v, tb_h_uncorrected, and tb_v_uncorrected.

  • Improved depth correction for effective soil temperature used in passive soil moisture retrieval; new results are captured in the surface_temperature data field. This correction reduces the dry bias seen when comparing SMAP data to in situ data from the core validation sites.


  • Frozen ground flag updated to reflect improved freeze/thaw detection algorithm, providing better accuracy; new results are captured in bit 7 of the surface_flag.



Overview

This Level-2 (L2) soil moisture product provides estimates of global land surface conditions retrieved by the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) passive microwave radiometer during 6:00 a.m. descending and 6:00 p.m. ascending half-orbit passes. SMAP L-band brightness temperatures are used to derive soil moisture data, which are then resampled to an Earth-fixed, global cylindrical 36 km Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid, Version 2.0 (EASE-Grid 2.0).
Parameter(s):
BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURESOIL MOISTURE
Platform(s):
SMAP Observatory
Sensor(s):
SMAP L-BAND RADIOMETER
Data Format(s):
HDF5
Temporal Coverage:
31 March 2015 to 13 August 2019
Temporal Resolution:
  • 49 minute
Spatial Resolution:
  • 36 km
  • 36 km
Spatial Reference System(s):
WGS 84 / NSIDC EASE-Grid 2.0 Global
EPSG:6933
Spatial Coverage:
N:
85.044
S:
-85.044
E:
180
W:
-180
Blue outlined yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.

Data Access & Tools

This data set has been retired. There is a more recent version of these data.

Help Articles

General Questions & FAQs

SMAP data files contain rich quality information that can be useful for many data users. The retrieval quality flag and surface flag bit values and interpretations are documented in the respective product Data Fields pages of the user guides for these data products
SMAP Ancillary data sets are used to produce SMAP Level-1, -2, -3, and -4 standard data products.
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.
This short article describes the customization services available for SMAP data using Earthdata Search.

How to Articles

Many NSIDC DAAC data sets can be accessed using the NSIDC DAAC's Data Access Tool. This tool provides the ability to search and filter data with spatial and temporal constraints using a map-based interface.Users have the option to
To convert HDF5 files into binary format you will need to use the h5dump utility, which is part of the HDF5 distribution available from the HDF Group. How you install HDF5 depends on your operating system.
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 subscriptions are available for select NSIDC DAAC data collections. Once signed up, the subscription service automatically sends you new data as they are delivered from active NASA satellite missions.
All 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, using wget or curl. Basic command line instructions are provided in the article below. 
NASA Earthdata Search is a map-based interface where a user can search for Earth science data, filter results based on spatial and temporal constraints, and order data with customizations including re-formatting, re-projecting, and spatial and parameter subsetting.
NASA Worldview is a map interface that allows users to interactively browse imagery, create visualizations, and download the underlying data.
NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS) provides up to date, full resolution imagery for selected NSIDC DAAC data sets.