SMEX04: Airborne Microwave Soil Moisture and Brightness Temperatures

SMEX04 data provides airborne microwave radiometer measurements of brightness temperature and soil moisture from the Sonora region. Collected by NOAA's Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer, this dataset supports validation of satellite soil moisture products. The documentation is noted as being provided solely by the Principal Investigators and not further reviewed by NSIDC.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite soil moisture retrieval algorithms based on airborne brightness temperature measurements.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of soil moisture in the Sonora region from geospatial data.
• Calibrating microwave emission models using time-series radiometer data.

Strengths

• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA Earthdata indicates established importance.
• Contains specific, calibrated geophysical measurements (brightness temperature, soil moisture).

Limitations

• Documentation is noted as not thoroughly reviewed or edited by NSIDC, potentially limiting support.
• Column names and dataset size (rows, file size) are unknown across all sources.
• Conflicting last-update dates exist between sources (2004-08-26 vs. 2026-04-09).

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Environmental Technology Laboratory

Collection Method

Acquired with the airborne Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer (PSR) instrument.

Freshness

2026-04-09 20:33:53.075792

Geography

Sonora