ADEOS-II/AMSR L2 Soil Moisture dataset is obtained from the AMSR sensor onboard ADEOS-II and produced by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).The Advanced Earth Observing Satellite-II (ADEOS-II) was launched on December 14, 2002 (Japanese Standard Time). The objective of ADEOS-II was to acquire data to contribute to international global climate change research, as well as for applications such as meteorology and fishery. ADEOS-II operation on orbit was given up on October 31 2003, because sufficient electric power was not available to maintain operation of the satellite.AMSR observes various physical contents concerning to water (H2O) by receiving weak microwaves naturally radiated from the Earth's surface and atmosphere and also regardless of day or night, the presence of clouds. Those sensors aim at collecting global data for mainly understanding the circulation of water and energy.Level 2 product stores the Geophysical quantity from the brightness temperature of level 1 product. This product includes Soil Moisture (SM). In general, at a smooth interface between two semi-infinite media, the emissivity is equal to one minus the Fresnel power reflectivity, which is calculated by using dielectric constant of the media and incident angle. Among the water surface emissivity at AMSR observing frequencies, 6.9; l0.6, 18.7, 36.5 and 89 GHz, the emissivity is larger at the higher frequency than at the lower one for both polarizations. The index, the discrepancy between the brightness temperatures at two frequencies divided by one at lower frequency, can be used as an index for surface wetness. The physical quantity unit is %.The provided format is HDF4. Spatial resolution is 10 km. The current version of the product is "Version 7". The generation unit is scene (defined as a half orbit).
JP/JAXA/SAOC