How do SMAP Scientists Use GLOBE Data (Part I)?
Data Analysis and Blog by Dr. Erika Podest, SMAP Scientist
SMAP has been collecting soil moisture measurements since mid-April 2015, which are freely available, online through the National Snow and Ice Data Archive Center (NSIDC): https://nsidc.org/data/smap
Of utmost importance is to have an assessment of the quality of the data, which is why there is a SMAP calibration/validation group. Its purpose is to determine the accuracy of the measurements and whether there are any biases. In order to calibrate and validate the SMAP data, there are professional partners around the world (see Figure 1) collecting soil moisture measurements, which we then compare to those from the satellite. If they match then it gives us confidence that SMAP is performing well. The more measurements we have however, the better, which is why GLOBE can greatly supplement the calibration/validation network.
Figure 1: SMAP calibration/validation partners.
