An evaluation of SMOS L-band vegetation optical depth (L-VOD) data sets: high sensitivity of L-VOD to above-ground biomass in Africa

Rodríguez-Fernández, Nemesio J.; Mialon, Arnaud; Mermoz, Stephane; Bouvet, Alexandre; Richaume, Philippe; Al Bitar, Ahmad; Al-Yaari, Amen; Brandt, Martin; Kaminski, Thomas; Le Toan, Thuy; Kerr, Yann H.; Wigneron, Jean-Pierre

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-4627-2018

Articles | Volume 15, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-4627-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-4627-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 14

Research article

|

30 Jul 2018

Research article |

| 30 Jul 2018

An evaluation of SMOS L-band vegetation optical depth (L-VOD) data sets: high sensitivity of L-VOD to above-ground biomass in Africa

Nemesio J. Rodríguez-Fernández, Arnaud Mialon, Stephane Mermoz, Alexandre Bouvet, Philippe Richaume, Ahmad Al Bitar, Amen Al-Yaari, Martin Brandt, Thomas Kaminski, Thuy Le Toan, Yann H. Kerr, and Jean-Pierre Wigneron

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-4627-2018-supplement

Data sets

SMOS level 3 products CATDS ftp://ext-catds-cpdc:catds2010@ftp.ifremer.fr/Land_products/GRIDDED/

SMOS IC products CATDS ftp://ext-catds-cecsm:catds2010@ftp.ifremer.fr/Land_products/L3_SMOS_IC_Vegetation_Optical_Depth/

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Short summary

Existing global scale above-ground biomass (AGB) maps are made at very high spatial resolution collecting data during several years. In this paper we discuss the use of a new data set from the SMOS satellite: the vegetation optical depth estimated from low microwave frequencies. It is shown that this new data set is highly sensitive to AGB. The spacial resolution of SMOS is coarse (40 km) but the new data set can be used to monitor AGB variations with time due to its high revisit frequency.