Over 30
years of global soil moisture observations for climate applications
19 June
2012
Water held
in soil plays an important role in the climate system. The dataset released by
ESA is the first remote-sensing soil moisture data record spanning the period
1978 to 2010 – a predecessor of the data now being provided by ESA’s SMOS mission.
The
datasets are now available to the science community for feedback analyses and
climate model validation.
The amount
of water held in global soils makes up only about 0.001% of the total water
found on Earth.
It is
crucial for plant growth, but is also linked to our weather and climate. This
is because soil moisture is a key variable controlling the exchange of water
and energy between the land and the atmosphere: dry soil emits little or no
moisture to the atmosphere.
A recently
detected decline in the global evaporation trend could, for example, directly
be explained by limited moisture supply.
The
relationship between soil moisture and the climate system is not yet fully
understood, and global long-term soil moisture observations have so far not
been available. That means the evaluation of climate models with regard to the
drying and wetting trends and associated feedbacks with temperature is still
difficult in many regions worldwide.
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