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? 
This Level-3 (L3) soil moisture product provides a daily composite of global land surface conditions retrieved by both the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) radar and radiometer. SMAP L-band soil moisture data are resampled to an Earth-fixed, global, cylindrical 9 km Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid, Version 2.0 (EASE-Grid 2.0).
Data Set ID:
SPL3SMAP
SMAP L3 Radar/Radiometer Global Daily 9 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture, Version 3
Version Summary:
Changes to this version include:
- Transitioned to Validated-Stage 2
- Using SPL2SMAP V3 Validated data as input
Get Data
DOWNLOADING DATA VIA HTTPS
An Earthdata Login account is required to access these data. Please visit the Earthdata Login registration page to register for an account. Once you have logged in, data can be downloaded via a Web browser, command line, or client. For help with downloading data, please see Options Available for Bulk Downloading Data from HTTPS with Earthdata Login.
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.
Earthdata Search: NASA's newest search and order tool for subsetting, reprojecting, and reformatting data.
Geographic Coverage
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
| Parameter(s): |
|
|---|---|
| Spatial Coverage: |
N: 85.044, S: -85.044, E: 180, W: -180 |
| Spatial Resolution: |
|
| Temporal Coverage: |
|
| Temporal Resolution: | 1 day |
| Data Format(s): |
|
| Platform(s) | SMAP Observatory |
| Sensor(s): | SMAP L-BAND RADIOMETER, SMAP L-Band Radar |
| Version: | V3 |
| Data Contributor(s): | Entekhabi, D., N. Das, E. G. Njoku, J. T. Johnson, and J. Shi. |
| Metadata XML: | View Metadata Record |
Data Citation
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. 2016. SMAP L3 Radar/Radiometer Global Daily 9 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture, Version 3. [Indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.5067/7KKNQ5UURM2W. [Date Accessed].Collapse All / Open All
Detailed Data Description
Parameter Description
Surface soil moisture (0-5 cm) in cm3/cm3 derived from brightness temperature and sigma nought measurements is output on a fixed 9 km EASE-Grid 2.0.
Brightness temperature (TB) is a measure of the radiance of the microwave radiation welling upward from the top of the atmosphere to the satellite. The SMAP L-Band Radiometer measures four brightness temperature Stokes parameters: TH, TV, T3, and T4 at 1.41 GHz. TH and TV are the horizontally and vertically polarized brightness temperatures, respectively, and T3 and T4 are the third and fourth Stokes parameters, respectively.
Sigma nought (sigma0), or the backscatter coefficient, is a measure of the strength of radar signals reflected back to the instrument from a target, and is defined as per unit area on the ground. Usually expressed in dB, it is a normalized dimensionless number, comparing the strength observed to that expected from a defined area. The SMAP L-band Radar measures sigma0 using VV, HH, and HV transmit-receive polarizations, and uses separate transmit frequencies for the H (1.26 GHz) and V (1.29 GHz) polarizations. Sigma0 measurements are derived using Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) processing.
Refer to the Data Fields document for details on all parameters.
Background color on
Format
Data are in HDF5 format. For software and more information, including an HDF5 tutorial, visit the HDF Group's HDF5 Web site.
Background color on
File Contents
As shown in Figure 1, each HDF5 file is organized into the following main groups, which contain additional groups and/or data sets:
For a complete list of file contents for the SMAP Level-3 radar/radiometer soil moisture product, refer to the Data Fields page.
Data Fields
Each file contains the main data groups summarized in this section. For a complete list and description of all data fields within these groups, refer to the Data Fields document.
All data element arrays are one-dimensional with a size N, where N is the number of valid cells from the swath that appear on the grid.
Soil Moisture Retrieval Data
Includes all combined radar and radiometer soil moisture data, ancillary data, and quality assessment flags.
Metadata Fields
Includes all metadata that describe the full content of each file. For a description of all metadata fields for this product, refer to the Metadata Fields document.
Background color on
File Naming Convention
Files are named according to the following convention, which is described in Table 1:
SMAP_L3_SM_AP_yyyymmdd_RLVvvv_NNN.[ext]
For example:
SMAP_L3_SM_AP_20151225_R13171_002.h5
Where:
| Variable | Description | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SMAP |
Indicates SMAP mission data | ||||||||
L3_SM_AP |
Indicates specific product (L3: Level-3; SM: Soil Moisture; AP: Active/Passive) |
||||||||
yyyymmdd |
4-digit year, 2-digit month, 2-digit day; date/time in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) of the first data element that appears in the product. | ||||||||
RLVvvv |
Composite Release ID, where:
R13171 indicates a standard data product with a version of 3.171. Refer to the SMAP Data Versions page for version information. |
||||||||
NNN |
Number of times the file was generated under the same version for a particular date/time interval (002: 2nd time) |
||||||||
.[ext] |
File extensions include:
|
Background color on
File Size
Each file is approximately 74 MB.
Background color on
Volume
The daily data volume is approximately 74 MB.
Background color on
Spatial Coverage
Coverage spans from 180°W to 180°E, and from approximately 85.044°N and 85.044°S. The gap in coverage at both the North and South Pole, called a pole hole, has a radius of approximately 400 km. The swath width is 1000 km, enabling nearly global coverage every three days.
Background color on
Spatial Resolution
SMAP 3 km Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) backscatter data and 36 km radiometer brightness temperature data are combined using the SMAP Active-Passive algorithm to create soil moisture data that are then gridded using the 9 km EASE-Grid 2.0 global projection.
Background color on
Projection and Grid Description
EASE-Grid 2.0
These data are provided on the global cylindrical EASE-Grid 2.0 (Brodzik et al. 2012). Each grid cell has a nominal area of approximately 9 x 9 km2 regardless of longitude and latitude. The SPL3SMAP data product is posted on a 9 km EASE-Grid that is nested consistently with the 36 km brightness temperatures and 3 km radar backscatter cross-section data. Figure 2 shows a schematic of the nesting to a resolution of 3 km (4872 rows x 11568 columns on global coverage), 9 km (1624 rows x 3856 columns on global coverage) and 36 km (406 rows x 964 columns on global coverage).
EASE-Grid 2.0 has a flexible formulation. By adjusting a single scaling parameter, a family of multi-resolution grids that nest within one another can be generated. The nesting can be adjusted so that smaller grid cells can be tessellated to form larger grid cells. Figure 2 shows a schematic of the nesting.
This feature of perfect nesting provides SMAP data products with a convenient common projection for both high-resolution radar observations and low-resolution radiometer observations, as well as for their derived geophysical products.
For more on EASE-Grid 2.0, refer to the EASE-Grid 2.0 Format Description.
Background color on
Temporal Coverage
Coverage spans from 13 April 2015 through 07 July 2015.
Note: Temporal coverage for this data set is limited due to the premature failure of the SMAP L-Band Radar. On 07 July 2015, the radar stopped transmitting due to an anomaly involving the instrument's high-power amplifier (HPA). For details, refer to the SMAP News Release issued 02 September 2015 by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Temporal Coverage Gaps
Satellite and Processing Events
Due to instrument maneuvers, data downlink anomalies, data quality screening, and other factors, small gaps in the SMAP time series will occur. Details of these events are maintained on two master lists:
SMAP On-Orbit Events List for Instrument Data Users
Master List of Bad and Missing Data
Background color on
Temporal Resolution
Each Level-3 file is a daily composite of half-orbit files/swaths.
Background color on
Software and Tools
For tools that work with SMAP data, refer to the Tools Web page.
Background color on
Data Acquisition and Processing
Sensor or Instrument Description
For a detailed description of the SMAP instrument, visit the SMAP Instrument page at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) SMAP Web site.
Background color on
Data Source
SMAP Level-3 radar/radiometer soil moisture data (SPL3SMAP) are composited from SMAP L2 Radar/Radiometer Global Daily 9 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture, Version 3 (SPL2SMAP).
Background color on
Theory of Measurements
The goal of SMAP mission is to combine the favorable attributes of SMAP L-Band Radar and Radiometer observations in terms of their spatial resolution and sensitivity to soil moisture, surface roughness, and vegetation in order to estimate soil moisture at a resolution of 10 km, and freeze-thaw state at a resolution of 1-3 km. Microwave radiometry and radar are well-established techniques for surface remote sensing. Combining passive and active sensors provides complementary information contained in the surface emissivity and backscatter signatures, which make it possible to obtain optimal accuracy of retrieved soil moisture at higher resolutions. Over land, it has been demonstrated that L-band radiometer and radar measurements both provide information to retrieve optimal soil moisture estimates (Das et al., 2011, 2014, and 2015).
Background color on
Derivation Techniques and Algorithms
The SMAP Level-3 radar and radiometer soil moisture data set is a daily gridded composite of the SMAP L2 Radar/Radiometer Global Daily 9 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture, Version 3 (SPL2SMAP) data set. The derivation of soil moisture from SMAP brightness temperatures occurs in the Level-2 processing of the separate radar and radiometer data sets.
Please refer to the Derivation Techniques section in the SPL2SMAP user guide for details on algorithms and ancillary data.
Background color on
Processing Steps
This product is generated by the SMAP Science Data Processing System (SDS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California USA. To generate the standard SPL3SMAP product, the processing software ingests one day’s worth of SPL2SMAP files and creates individual global composites as two-dimensional arrays for each output parameter defined in the SPL2SMAP product. Wherever data overlap occurs (typically at high latitudes), data acquired closest to the 6:00 a.m. local solar time are chosen. Because the input SPL2SMAP files are available only for descending 6:00 a.m. passes, the resulting SPL3SMAP files are available only for descending 6:00 a.m. passes.
Background color on
Error Sources
Anthropogenic Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), principally from ground-based surveillance radars, can contaminate both radar and radiometer measurements at L-band. Early measurements and results from ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission indicate that in some regions RFI is present and detectable. The SMAP radar and radiometer electronics and algorithms include design features to mitigate the effects of RFI. The SMAP radar utilizes selective filters and an adjustable carrier frequency to tune to predetermined RFI-free portions of the spectrum while on orbit. The SMAP radiometer implements a combination of time and frequency diversity, kurtosis detection, and use of T4 thresholds to detect and, where possible, mitigate RFI.
Other sources of error, such as disaggregation process errors and calibration and gridding errors, are quantified analytically for the disaggregated brightness temperatures and retrieved soil moisture at 9 km and 3 km. (Entekhabi et al. 2012 and Das et al. 2015)
For more information, refer to the Error Sources section of the SMAP L2 Radar/Radiometer Half-Orbit 9 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture, Version 3 (SPL2SMAP) user guide.
Background color on
Quality Assessment
For in-depth details regarding the quality of these Version 3 Validated data, refer to the following report:
Beta Assessment Report
Quality Overview
SMAP products provide multiple means to assess quality. Each product contains bit flags, uncertainty measures, and file-level metadata that provide quality information. For information regarding the specific bit flags, uncertainty measures, and file-level metadata contained in this product, refer to the Data Fields and Metadata Fields documents.
Each HDF5 file contains metadata with Quality Assessment (QA) metadata flags that are set by the SDS at the JPL prior to delivery to NSIDC. A separate metadata file with an .xml file extension is also delivered to NSIDC with the HDF5 file; it contains the same information as the file-level metadata.
A separate QA file with a .qa file extension is also associated with each data file. QA files are ASCII text files that contain statistical information in order to help users better assess the quality of the associated data file. If a product fails QA, it is never delivered to NSIDC DAAC.
Data Flags
Bit flags generated from input SMAP data and ancillary data are also employed to help determine the quality of the retrievals. Ancillary data help determine either specific aspects of the processing (such as corrections for transient water) or the quality of the retrievals (e.g. precipitation flag). These flags will provide information as to whether the ground is frozen, snow-covered, or flooded, or whether it is actively precipitating at the time of the satellite overpass. Other flags will indicate whether masks for steeply sloped topography, or for urban, heavily forested, or permanent snow/ice areas are in effect.
For a description of the data flag types and methods of flagging, refer to the Data Flags section in the SPL2SMAP user guide.
Background color on
References and Related Publications
Contacts and Acknowledgments
Investigators
Dara Entekhabi, Narendra Das, Eni Njoku
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
Joel Johnson
Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43210 USA
Jiancheng Shi
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA
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.
Short name
Title
Subsetting... read more
How To
How do I programmatically request data services such as subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection using an API?
On 31 October 2018, system upgrades lead to a change in our API domain. The URL changed from https://n5eil01u.ecs.nsidc.org to https://n5eil02u.ecs.nsidc.org. We will have a redirect in place for several weeks, but we advise you to manually change the URL to avoid errors. If you have questions or... read more
How to import and geolocate SMAP Level-3 and Level-4 data in ENVI
The following are instructions on how to import and geolocate SMAP Level-3 Radiometer Soil Moisture HDF5 data in ENVI.
Testing notes
Software: ENVI
Software version: 5.3
Platform: Windows 7
Data set: SMAP L3 Radiometer Global Daily 36 km EASE-Grid Soil... read more
How do I visualize SMAP data in Worldview?
This video tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to visualize SMAP data in Worldview (http://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/). NASA Worldview is a map-based application... read more
How do I search, order, and customize SMAP data using Earthdata Search?
This video tutorial and attached PDF document provide step-by-step instructions on how to search, order, and customize SMAP data using Earthdata Search (https://search.earthdata.nasa.... read more
How to Import SMAP HDF Data Into ArcGIS
Selected SMAP L4, Version 4 HDF data (SPL4SMAU, SPL4SMGP, & SPL4SMLM) can be added to ArcGIS with a simple drag/drop or using the 'Add Data' function. These data can be imported and visualized but not geolocated. In order to import, project, and scale these data and other SMAP L3 and L4 HDF... read more
How do I access data using OPeNDAP?
Data can be programmatically accessed using NSIDC’s OPeNDAP Hyrax server, allowing you to reformat and subset data based on parameter and array index. For more information on OPeNDAP, including supported data sets and known issues, please see our OPeNDAP documentation: ... read more
