1. “Land Surface Study” Scenario – Ted Strub’s Effort Search on “soil moisture brightness temperature” At the bottom of the first page of the results was a site: “SMEX02 SSM/I Brightness Temperature Data, Iowa Parameters. BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURE; SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENT... Data are brightness temperatures given by channel: 85.5 GHz, 37.0 GHz, 22.2 GHz,... nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0200.html - 14k - Cached - Similar pages”CachedSimilar pages This led to a site (next page) where I could read about the SSM/I and AMSR-E systems, then click on “Documentation”, “Access Data”, “View Metadata Record” and “See Also” either “AMSR-E Validation Soil Moisture” or “Contact User Services”. In the first 3 links (red, above), although general descriptions were given for both SSM/I and AMSR-E, most of the data description related to SSM/I. There were many links, some to AMSR-E data that I did not try. When I clicked AMSR-E Validation Soil Moisture”, I found links to data sets for SMEX02, which included AMSR-E data and soil moisture data, met data, vegetation data, ancillary data, etc. This is where I would have sent my data analyst. I’m not sure where the topographic data would have been, maybe there. The above info was definitely enough to put my data analyst on the right track, although she would have spent a day or more looking at the various links to be thorough. Someone knowledgable about soil moisture would have picked through the links better. This took me about 1.5 hours, but I was experimenting with printing out files, making this ppt, etc.

2. SMEX02 SSM/I Brightness Temperature Data, Iowa Data Contributors  JACKSON, THOMAS  WEN, JUN Parameters  BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURE  SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENT Instruments  SSM/I : SPECIAL SENSOR MICROWAVE/IMAGER DocumentationDocumentation Access Data Access Data The Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) is a seven-channel, four-frequency, linearly polarized passive microwave radiometric system. Data are brightness temperatures given by channel: 85.5 GHz, 37.0 GHz, 22.2 GHz, and 19.3 GHz. The study was conducted between 29 April and 13 July 2002 in the SMEX02 Iowa study area. Data are provided as ASCII text files and are available via FTP. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) is a mission instrument launched aboard NASA's Aqua Satellite on 4 May 2002. AMSR-E validation studies linked to SMEX are designed to evaluate the accuracy of AMSR-E soil moisture data. Specific validation objectives include: assessing and refining soil moisture algorithm performance, verifying soil moisture estimation accuracy, investigating the effects of vegetation, surface temperature, topography, and soil texture on soil moisture accuracy, and determining the regions that are useful for AMSR-E soil moisture measurements. View Metadata Record Data Citation Jackson, T. and Wen, J. 2003. SMEX02 SSM/I Brightness Temperature Data, Iowa. Boulder, CO: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media. See Also  AMSR-E Validation Soil Moisture AMSR-E Validation Soil Moisture  Contact User Services Contact User Services