AirMOSS P-band Radar Data for Root-Zone Soil Moisture

AirMOSS P-band synthetic aperture radar data captures polarimetric backscattering coefficients (sigma-0) to estimate root-zone soil moisture. The dataset contains biannual flight campaign data from 2012 to 2015 across 10 North American study sites, including the Harvard Forest. It was collected by NASA's airborne instrument to investigate links between soil moisture variability and continental-scale carbon fluxes.

Use Cases

• Retrieving root-zone soil moisture (RZSM) using L1 P-band radar backscatter coefficients.
• Analyzing seasonal and inter-annual variability in soil moisture from 2012-2015 time-series data.
• Investigating relationships between soil moisture and carbon fluxes using calibrated polarimetric SAR data.
• Geospatial analysis of subsurface conditions across 10 distinct North American study sites.

Strengths

• Data is polarimetrically calibrated and georeferenced, providing precise spatial and polarization information.
• Covers a multi-year time series with at least biannual collections from 2012 to 2015.
• Designed for a specific scientific objective: measuring root-zone soil moisture to link to carbon fluxes.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: one lists 2026-03 -13, another lists 2015-09-09.
• The exact license is unclear, listed only as 'other-license-specified'.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the AirMOSS P-band SAR instrument flown on a NASA Gulfstream-III aircraft.

Time Range

2012 to 2015

Freshness

2026-03-13 19:16:03.246371

Geography

10 study sites across North America, including Harvard Forest, Massachusetts.