Airborne P-band Radar Data for Root-Zone Soil Moisture, 2012-2015

2012 to 2015 flight campaigns provide Level 1 polarimetric radar backscatter data from the AirMOSS P-band SAR instrument. Collected over 10 North American study sites, including the Chamela Biological Station in Mexico, this dataset contains calibrated sigma-0 measurements. The data is produced by NASA and ORNL_CLOUD for retrieving root-zone soil moisture and analyzing its relationship to carbon fluxes.

Use Cases

• Retrieving root-zone soil moisture (RZSM) using polarimetric backscattering coefficients (sigma-0).
• Investigating seasonal and inter-annual variability in soil moisture across 10 North American sites.
• Analyzing relationships between soil moisture and carbon fluxes using georeferenced, time-series radar data.
• Calibrating or validating subsurface and subcanopy radar models with fully polarimetric P-band (UHF) measurements.

Strengths

• Data covers a multi-year time series from at least biannual flights between 2012 and 2015.
• Provides polarimetrically calibrated, georeferenced products from a specialized P-band (420 440 MHz) radar system.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA EarthData and Data.gov indicates recognized importance and curation.

Limitations

• Specific row counts, file sizes, and detailed column names are not provided by any source.
• Conflicting license information: one source lists 'other-license-specified', another lists 'None'.
• Conflicting last updated dates: one source shows 2026-03-13, another shows 2015-04 21.

Provenance

Source

NASA Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface (AirMOSS) instrument, ORNL_CLOUD.

Collection Method

Airborne data collection via NASA Gulfstream-III aircraft flights.

Time Range

2012 to 2015

Freshness

2026-03-13 18:53:37.913786

Geography

10 study sites across North America, including the Chamela Biological Station, Jalisco, Mexico.