ESA’S SOIL MOISTURE AND OCEAN SALINITY MISSION MISSION STATUS AND PERFORMANCE Susanne Mecklenburg (ESA) SMOS mission manager Ocean Salinity Science and Salinity Remote Sensing Workshop UK Met Office, 26-28 November 2014
Dec 23, 2015
ESA’S SOIL MOISTURE AND OCEAN SALINITY MISSION
MISSION STATUS AND PERFORMANCE
Susanne Mecklenburg (ESA)SMOS mission manager
Ocean Salinity Science and Salinity Remote Sensing WorkshopUK Met Office, 26-28 November 2014
ESA EO MISSIONS
SMOS mission operations have recently been extended to 2017 by ESA (Feb) and CNES (end of year).
THE MISSION: OBJECTIVES & SCIENCE REQUIREMENTS
The mission objective is to provide global measurements of two key variables in the water cycle - soil moisture and ocean salinity.
Accuracy Spatial resolution
Revisit time
Soil Moisture
4% volumetric soil moisture
35-50 km 1-3 days
Ocean salinity
0.5-1.5 psu for single observation
0.1 psu for a 10-30 day average for a open ocean area of 200x200 km
200 km 10-30 days
The science requirements
THE MISSIONLaunch - 2 November 2009
Orbit - ~ altitude of 758 km; inclination of 98.44°; low-Earth orbit, polar, sun-synchronous, quasi-circular, dusk-dawn (6am/6pm), 23-day repeat cycle, 3-day sub-cycle
Operations shared between ESA (overall mission management and ground segment operations) and CNES (responsible for platform operations)
THE PAYLOADMIRAS, the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis instrument, is a passive microwave 2-D interferometric radiometer measuring in L-Band (1.4GHz, 21cm); 69 antennas are equally distributed over the 3 arms and the central structure.
SATELLITE AND PAYLOADSTATUS
Degraded data = 1.023% (since May 2010)
Lost data = 0.088% (since May 2010)
Mon
thly
loss
or
deg
raded d
ata
Cum
ula
tive loss
or
degra
ded d
ata
Platform fully operational, all sub-systems in good health and no sign of degradation (remaining propellant sufficient for another 120 years in orbit!)
Payload status & performance excellent after ~5 years of operations with some well-identified anomalies with recovery procedures in place
High data availability Overall mission performance 98.9% Calibration: 1.68% of observations
(Status Oct 2014)
GROUND SEGMENT OPERATIONSSTATUS
Very reliable ground segment operations.
Ground segment continuously acquires and processes data up to level 2 (soil moisture and ocean salinity) in 99% of time and provides level 1 data in NRT.
Data available to science users within 1-3 days from sensing, for NRT within 3 hours from sensing (~90% of time).
2nd reprocessing campaign in 2014 with reprocessed data up to level 2 available beginning 2015:
Based on level 1 v600 Start of level 1 reprocessing in July 2014 Start level 2 soil moisture and sea surface
salinity reprocessing autumn 2014. Reprocessed data available in spring 2015
New data products (soil moisture in NRT, sea ice thickness) to be included into portfolio.
SMOS receiving stations at ESAC.
Increasing uptake of SMOS data in science community.
DATA PRODUCTS
latency
maturity
scientific
operational
NRT day month
L2 Soil Moisture
L2 OceanSalinity
L1 brightness temperatures
Sea Ice Thicknes
s
HurricaneWind Speed
Soil Freeze/Thaw
Soil Frost Depth
Snow Depthon Sea Ice
Plant Available
Water
VegetationOpacity
Forest Height
Vegetation Water
ContentNet
EcosystemExchange
Soil Moisturebased on NN
L3/L4 soil moisture and ocean salinity
DATA PRODUCTS
latency
maturity
scientific
operational
NRT day month
L2 Soil Moisture
L2 OceanSalinity
L1 brightness temperatures
Sea Ice Thicknes
s
HurricaneWind Speed
Soil Freeze/Thaw
Soil Frost Depth
Snow Depthon Sea Ice
Plant Available
Water
VegetationOpacity
Forest Height
Vegetation Water
ContentNet
EcosystemExchange
Soil Moisturebased on NN
L3/L4 soil moisture and ocean salinity
Available from ESA
NRT L1 TB: BUFR (ECMWF) NRT L1 TB LIGHT (full angular resolution,
reduced grid, only land coverage, no averaging of TB in antenna frame)
available from GTS and EUMETCast
DATA PRODUCTS
latency
maturity
scientific
operational
NRT day month
L2 Soil Moisture
L2 OceanSalinity
L1 brightness temperatures
Sea Ice Thicknes
s
HurricaneWind Speed
Soil Freeze/Thaw
Soil Frost Depth
Snow Depthon Sea Ice
Plant Available
Water
VegetationOpacity
Forest Height
Vegetation Water
ContentNet
EcosystemExchange
Soil Moisturebased on NN
L3/L4 soil moisture and ocean salinity
Available from ESA
New products implemented by ESA, available from ECMWF and University of Hamburg
DATA PRODUCTS
latency
maturity
scientific
operational
NRT day month
L2 Soil Moisture
L2 OceanSalinity
L1 brightness temperatures
Sea Ice Thicknes
s
HurricaneWind Speed
Soil Freeze/Thaw
Soil Frost Depth
Snow Depthon Sea Ice
Plant Available
Water
VegetationOpacity
Forest Height
Vegetation Water
ContentNet
EcosystemExchange
Soil Moisturebased on NN
L3/L4 soil moisture and ocean salinity
Available from ESA
New products to be implemented by ESA, available from ECMWF and University of Hamburg
French (CATDS: www.catds.fr) and Spanish (CP34: http://cp34-bec.cmima.csic.es/) National Centres
SMOS SEA ICE THICKNESS
Feb 2013
SMOS brightness temperatures can be used to retrieve sea ice thickness up to ~ 0.5-1m
Semi-empirical retrieval based on TB intensities: Using thermodynamic and radiative
transfer model Accounts for ice temperature
(surface air temperature from JRA-25 Re-Analyse ) and ice salinity (SSS from weekly climatology)
Complementary with ESA’s CryoSat data. Operational users have signalled interest
and using data already (DMI, MetNo, ECMWF).
Daily maps generated by University of Hamburg and disseminated with latency of 24 hours, since winter season 2010/11 till now through: http://icdc.zmaw.de
SEA ICE THICKNESS
SEA ICE THICKNESS (VI)Validation of SMOS sea ice product March 2014
Most comprehensive data set to validate sea ice thicknessData analysis on-going
SMOS IN DATA ASSIMILATION
CTRL - SMOS Positive impact of SMOS brightness temperatures in ECMWF’s data assimilation system for soil moisture analysis (© ECMWF)
Assimilation of brightness temperatures for improved hydrological modelling and flood forecasting has started (U.Gent, CESBIO); Initial DA experiments showed a positive impact of SMOS observations on predicted stream flow (© U.Gent)
Carbon cycle: Gross Primary Production estimated by the BETHY model before (left) and after (right) assimilation of SMOS Level 3 soil moisture data in gC/m2 for the period 2010-2011. Credits: FastOpt
1. Need of synergistic scientific exploitation of mission data SMOS + future observational data only available during mission extension
for synergistic use in scientific applications (e.g. with SMAP, Sentinels etc) Cal/Val activities (including campaigns to consolidate new data products)
2. Need of enhanced process understanding on time-scales exceeding the initial mission lifetime Longer time series allow observing and understanding different processes
that were not necessarily targeted in the original mission design (e.g. El Nino and El Nina signals in SSS, draught pattern monitoring, generation of harmonized multi-mission data sets for climate monitoring)
CCI: Soil moisture and ocean salinity have been identified as ECV, with a need for long-term measurements for such measurements.
Merged data products: Increased confidence in merging SMOS data with other L-band observations for the generation of long-term data sets and thematic data records.
3. Pre-operational need for continuous observation data sets: Operational and scientific users have expressed the need for data continuity in (semi-) operational applications following the maturation of the SMOS data products.
OBJECTIVES FOR EXTENDED MISSIONFROM PB-EO PAPER
The initial mission objective to provide global measurements of two key variables in the water cycle - soil moisture and ocean salinity - remains fully applicable during the extended period. However a review of the mission requirements over ocean and the appropriate validation procedure will be performed.
The following extended missions objectives are defined:
1. SMOS brightness temperatures, soil moisture, and ocean salinity observations shall be analysed with respect to geophysical processes related to the water cycle occurring on time scales exceeding the nominal mission lifetime of 3 (5) years.
2. Daily sea ice thickness estimates based on MIRAS observations shall be provided for the Northern Hemisphere with a spatial resolution of 10.000 km2 up to maximum values of 50 cm.
EXTENDED MISSION OBJECTIVESFROM PB-EO PAPER
© Craig Donlon
One platform combining different functionalities
Data quality control: where does information come from for SSS at particular grid point, what went into this particular SSS value
Match-up data base: satellite versus in-situ data
Ancillary data: Collocation with “other” ocean data (SST, altimetry etc)
A tool for anyone to use: ESLs and external users alike, i.e. accessible for SSS (and beyond) community
Implementation Needs to be located at existing data hub
(e.g. CATDS) Start regionally/Pilot-pre-TEP: SPURS,
our favourite area in the Pacific, Atlantic Use existing systems (FELIX) and ATBDs
(IFREMER) as start up
PRE-TEP SALINITY
DATA QUALITY & REPROCESSINGLEVEL 1 BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURES & RFI
(Tx+Ty )/2 Current Level 1 New L1 V6
Orbital stability, latitudinal slope
6.9 mk/lat deg 4 mK/lat deg
Seasonal stability 0.4 K 0.12 K
Long term stability: yearly drift
0.27 K/year 0.01 K/year
LEVEL 1 Significant improvements regarding
drifts/stability and spatial biases in new Level 1 processor.
New processor implements correct computation of the 4th Stokes parameter and improved RFI flagging.
Remaining problem: land-sea contamination
RFI situation over Europe and worldwide much improved.
Euro
pe
United St
...
Canad
a
South Ame..
.
Middle-Ea
st
India/Pak
i...China
Rest of A
siaAfri
ca
Australi
a/...
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
SMOS RFI scenario worldwide by Sep 2013Distribution of interference per area, with indication of RFI strenght
Moderate RFI (TB < 1000K)
Strong RFI (1000K<TB<5000K)
Very Strong RFI (TB > 5000K)
Working closely with national authorities
Japan: tests on-going with national authorities after formal complaint to ITU to understand sources and switch them off.
The Turkish authorities (BTK) have initiated actions and seven RFIs were switched of during the reporting period. There are however still more than 30 RFIs active, and three of them are very strong (BT > 5,000 K).
http://www.cesbio.ups-tlse.fr/SMOS_blog/
DATA QUALITY & REPROCESSINGLEVEL 2 SEA SURFACE SALINITY
Required accuracy 0.5-1.5 psu for single observation 0.1 psu for a 10-30 day average for a open ocean
area of 200x200 km
Status now: approaching scientific requirements
Improvements for 2nd reprocessing (processor V6XX) Main improvements will come from improved Level 1
data Improved estimation of Vertical Total Electron Content
(VTEC) for descending passes and their use in the SSS retrieval
Better RFI detection and flagging Improved roughness model 3 (empirical)
Future work Optimising OTT (Ocean Target Transformation)
approach for residual bias and long-term drift removal.
Better galactic noise scattering model. Increasing validity of roughness correction models. Corrected Level 1 product tailored for oceanographic
application.
Regional comparison between SMOS level 3 data (here CATDS, CEC-LOCEAN, CEC-IFREMER and CATDS/OPER) and in-situ data including ARGO profiler, moorings and TSGSSS data (1-10m depth). The numbers given show the rms difference between Level 3 data and in-situ observations averaged over 100km-1 month. Credit: LOCEAN, IFREMER, CATDS.
SMOS FOLLOW-ON & L-BAND CONTINUITY
REQUIREMENTS COLLECTION FROM THE SCIENCE/OPERATIONAL COMMUNITY Recommendations from
science workshops indicate clear need for L-Band continuity (Living Planet, SMOS-Aquarius WS)
ISSI forum on “Continuity of microwave observations in L-band for operational and climate applications”
Regular interaction with EUMETSAT community
PREPARING MISSION CONCEPTS SMOS follow-on concept: SMOSOps
and SUPER MIRAS (ESA led) SMOS NEXT (CNES led) STSE study on concept for future
water cycle mission
BUILDING UP OPERATIONAL USER COMMUNITY Operational application for SMOS data in NWP
(ECMWF, proven) and hydrological forecasting (on-going), working with WMO
Availability of SMOS L1 data in NRT L2 soil moisture NRT data product planned (neural
networks) Suit of further operational data products on-going:
hurricane tracking, sea ice thickness etc
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION Close collaboration with the
counterpart L-Band missions: Aquarius and SMAP teams
CEOS virtual constellation
SMOS CONTRIBUTING TO ECVSSoil moisture and ocean salinity have been defined as Essential Climate Variables (ECV) by GCOS in its second Adequacy Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the global climate observing systems
Way forward towards L-Band continuity to be identified over coming years
Follow–on
UPCOMING SMOS EVENTS
2nd SMOS science conference (25-29 May 2015) and SMOS training course (18-22 May 2015)
ESA-ESAC, Villafranca (near Madrid), Spain
www.smos2015.info Deadline for abstracts: 16 January 2015
Remote Sensing of EnvironmentSpecial Issue on ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission –Achievements and novel applications after 5 years in orbit(Focus on evolution of novel data products and applications & potential of SMOS data for the generation of long-term data sets)
Submission deadline June 2015
1. Excellent status of the mission, including space and ground segment
2. Timely provision of high quality data to science and NRT data users
3. New/operational products emerging
4. Operational agencies use SMOS data!
5. 2nd mission reprocessing planned for 2014 with improved L1 and L2
processors, data available spring 2015
6. Note upcoming SMOS events!
SUMMARY