LPRM_AMSRE_SOILM2: AMSR-E Satellite Land Parameters

AMSR-E/Aqua surface soil moisture (LPRM) L2B V002 is a Level 2 swath dataset from NASA's Aqua satellite. It provides surface soil moisture, land surface temperature, and vegetation water content derived from passive microwave data using the Land Parameter Retrieval Model. The data covers a global period from June 2002 to October 2011 at spatial resolutions of 56 km and 38 km.

Use Cases

• Monitoring drought conditions based on surface soil moisture retrievals.
• Modeling land surface energy fluxes using skin temperature and vegetation water content.
• Calibrating and validating hydrological models with global, multi-year geospatial data.
• Studying climate change impacts on soil moisture and vegetation over a nine-year period.

Strengths

• Provides a nine-year continuous record from June 2002 to October 2011.
• Derives multiple key land parameters (soil moisture, temperature, vegetation water content) from a unified retrieval model.
• Has a cross-platform presence on datagov and nasa_earthdata, indicating established use and validation.

Limitations

• Data collection ceased in October 2011 due to a satellite antenna failure, limiting temporal currency.
• Specific column names and dataset size (rows, file size) are not provided in any source description.
• Sources conflict on the 'last updated' metadata (2026 vs. 2011), creating uncertainty about maintenance.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) on the Aqua satellite.

Collection Method

Passive microwave remote sensing data processed with the Land Parameter Retrieval Model (LPRM), a forward radiative transfer model.

Time Range

June 2002 to October 2011

Freshness

2026-03-13 18:06:44.527588 (from datagov, though this may be a metadata update; data collection ended in 2011)

Geography

Global coverage, with swath-based data collection.