On Monday August 8, 2022 the SMAP observatory entered a safe-mode which is designed to maintain its essential functions but stops science data acquisition. The Project team is investigating the cause of the anomaly and actively working on resuming operations and continued science data acquisition. The NSIDC DAAC archive will not have science data products during this period.
On Wednesday, August 17, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (USA Mountain Time), the following data collections may not be available due to planned system maintenance: AMSR-E, Aquarius, High Mountain Asia, IceBridge, ICESat/GLAS, ICESat-2, MEaSUREs, MODIS, NISE, SMAP, SnowEx, and VIIRS.
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This is the most recent version of these data.
Version Summary
Changes to this version include:
- Dual Channel Algorithm (DCA) replaces Single Channel Algorithm – Vertical (SCA-V) as baseline algorithm
- Bulk_density maximum value changed from 1 to 2.65
Overview
This Level-3 (L3) soil moisture product provides a composite of daily estimates of global land surface conditions retrieved by the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) passive microwave radiometer. SMAP L-band soil moisture data are resampled to a global, cylindrical 36 km Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid, Version 2.0 (EASE-Grid 2.0).
Data Contributor(s):
O'Neill, P. E., S. Chan, E. G. Njoku, T. Jackson, R. Bindlish, and J. Chaubell.
Filter available files based on date, spatial area, or filename before downloading. Choose from multiple download options, e.g., Python script. Export bounding boxes as a GeoJSON.
Search and order data from all NASA DAACs using spatial and temporal filters in a map interface. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets.
Programmatically request selected data products through our API. This tool is valuable for selecting just the parameters you need from big data sets. Apply spatial and temporal filters, subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection.
Extract point and area samples from geospatial data via spatial, temporal, and/or parameter subsetting. Preview and interact with samples before downloading. The Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples tool is only available for select NSIDC data products.
Visualize georeferenced arrays in NetCDF, HDF and GRIB formats. Plot data on global or regional maps, choosing from multiple map projections. Overlay continent outlines or masks.
Access, subset, project, interpolate, analyze, and/or combine data products with this Python library. Useful for geospatial analyses run locally or in the cloud.
Download, bulk download, or visualize SMAP L3 and L4 data, guided by Python-based Jupyter Notebooks. These notebooks include examples of applying recommended quality flags for SMAP data.
Find, download, and process select SMAP L3 and L4 data products using this R package. This tool includes functions to extract gridded products and reformat to a GeoTIFF.
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.
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.
This step-by-step tutorial demonstrates how to access MODIS and SMAP data using the Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS). AppEEARS allows users to access, explore, and download point and area data with spatial, temporal, and parameter subsets.
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
This How to guide outlines the steps for properly importing, projecting and visualizing HDF and NetCDF files in ArcMap. A couple of things to note before you start:
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.
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).
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 uses the Global Imagery Browse Service (GIBS) to provide up to date, full resolution imagery for select NSIDC DAAC data sets (see attachments below).
OPeNDAP, the Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol, is a NASA community standard DAP that provides a simple way for researchers to access and work with data over the internet.
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:
Level-2 soil moisture product (SPL2SMP)
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.
The following table describes the data subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection services that are currently available for SMAP data via the NASA Earthdata Search, a Data Subscription, and Programmatic Access.