The SMOS Mission: New Tool for Monitoring Key Elements of the Global Water Cycle Auteur(s) : Kerr, Yann H. Waldteufel, Philippe Wigneron, Jean-pierre Delwart, Steven Cabot, Francois Boutin, Jacqueline Escorihuela, Maria-jose Font, Jordi Éditeur(s) : IEEE Résumé : It is now well understood that data on soil moisture and sea surface salinity (SSS) are required to improve meteorological and climate predictions. These two quantities are not yet available globally or with adequate temporal or spatial sampling. It is recognized that a spaceborne L-band radiometer with a suitable antenna is the most promising way of fulfilling this gap. With these scientific objectives and technical solution at the heart of a proposed mission concept the European Space Agency (ESA) selected the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission as its second Earth Explorer Opportunity Mission. The development of the SMOS mission was led by ESA in collaboration with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France and the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnologico Industrial (CDTI) in Spain. SMOS carries a single payload, an L-Band 2-D interferometric radiometer operating in the 1400-1427-MHz protected band [1]. The instrument receives the radiation emitted from Earth's surface, which can then be related to the moisture content in the first few centimeters of soil over land, and to salinity in the surface waters of the oceans. SMOS will achieve an unprecedented maximum spatial resolution of 50 km at L-band over land (43 km on average over the field of view), providing multiangular dual polarized (or fully polarized) brightness temperatures over the globe. SMOS has a revisit time of less than 3 days so as to retrieve soil moisture and ocean salinity data, meeting the mission's science objectives. The caveat in relation to its sampling requirements is that SMOS will have a somewhat reduced sensitivity when compared to conventional radiometers. The SMOS satellite was launched successfully on November 2, 2009. Proceedings of the IEEE (0018-9219) (IEEE), 2010-05 , Vol. 98 , N. 5 , P. 666-687 Droits : 2010 IEEE – All Rights Reserved http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00004/11483/8065.pdf DOI:10.1109/JPROC.2010.2043032 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00004/11483/ | Partager |
Comparison of spaceborne measurements of sea surface salinity and colored detrital matter in the Amazon plume Auteur(s) : Fournier, Severine Chapron, Bertrand Salisbury, J. Vandemark, Douglas Reul, Nicolas Éditeur(s) : Amer Geophysical Union Résumé : Large rivers are key hydrologic components in oceanography, particularly regarding air-sea and land-sea exchanges and biogeochemistry. We enter now in a new era of Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) observing system from Space with the recent launches of the ESA Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and the NASA Aquarius/Sac-D missions. With these new sensors, we are now in an excellent position to revisit SSS and ocean color investigations in the tropical northwest Atlantic using multi-year remote sensing time series and concurrent in situ observations. The Amazon is the world's largest river in terms of discharge. In its plume, SSS and upper water column optical properties such as the absorption coefficient of colored detrital matter (acdm) are strongly negatively correlated (<-0.7). Local quasi-linear relationships between SSS and acdm are derived for these plume waters over the period of 2010-2013 using new spaceborne SSS and ocean color measurements. Results allow unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution of this coupling. These relationships are then used to estimate SSS in the Amazon plume based on ocean color satellite data. This new product is validated against SMOS and in situ data and compared with previously developed SSS retrieval models. We demonstrate the potential to estimate tropical Atlantic SSS for the extended period from 1998 to 2010, prior to spaceborne SSS data collection. Journal Of Geophysical Research-oceans (0148-0227) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2015-05 , Vol. 120 , N. 5 , P. 3177-3192 Droits : 2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00255/36610/35742.pdf DOI:10.1002/2014JC010109 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00255/36610/ | Partager Voir aussi Amazon-Orinoco river plume SMOS SSS conservative mixing ocean color salinity satellite oceanography Télécharger |
Issues About Retrieving Sea Surface Salinity in Coastal Areas From SMOS Data Auteur(s) : Zine, S Boutin, J Waldteufel, P Vergely, J.l. Pellarin, T Lazure, Pascal Éditeur(s) : IEEE Résumé : This paper aims at studying the quality of the sea surface salinity (SSS) retrieved from soil moisture and ocean salinity (SMOS) data in coastal areas. These areas are characterized by strong and variable SSS gradients [several practical salinity units (psu) on relatively small scales: the extent of river plumes is highly variable, typically at kilometric and daily scales. Monitoring this variability from SMOS measurements is particularly challenging because of their resolution (typically 30-100 km) and because of the contamination by the nearby land. A set of academic tests was conducted with a linear coastline and constant geophysical parameters, and more realistic tests were conducted over the Bay of Biscay. The bias of the retrieved SSS has been analyzed, as well as the root mean square (rms) of the bias, and the retrieved SSS compared to a numerical hydrodynamic model in the semirealistic case. The academic study showed that the Blackman apodization window provides the best compromise in terms of magnitude and fluctuations of the bias of the retrieved SSS. Whatever the type of vegetation cover, a strong negative bias, greater than 1 psu, was found when nearer than 36 km from the coast. Between 44 and 80 km, the type of vegetation cover has an impact of less than a factor 2 on the bias, and no influence further than 80 km from the coast. The semirealistic study conducted in the Bay of Biscay showed a bias over ten days lower than 0.2 psu for distances greater than 47 km, due to an averaging over various geometries (coastline orientation, swath orientation, etc.). The bias showed a weak dependence on the location of the grid point within the swath. Despite the noise on the retrieved SSS, contrasts due to the plume of the Loire River and the Gironde estuary remained detectable on ten-day averaged maps with an rms of 0.57 psu. Finally, imposing thresholds on the major axis of the measurements brought little improvement to the bias, whereas it increased the rms and- could lead to strong swath restriction: a 49-km threshold on the major axis resulted in an effective swath of 800-900 km instead of 1200 km. NOT CONTROLLED OCR Transactions on geoscience an remote sensing IEEE (0196-2892) (IEEE), 2007-07 , Vol. 45 , N. 7 , P. 2061-2072 Droits : 2007 IEEE http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/2007/publication-3643.pdf DOI:10.1109/TGRS.2007.894934 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00000/3643/ | Partager |
SMOS salinity in the subtropical north Atlantic salinity maximum: 1. Comparison with Aquarius and in situ salinity Auteur(s) : Hernandez, Olga Boutin, Jacqueline Kolodziejczyk, Nicolas Reverdin, Gilles Martin, Nicolas Gaillard, Fabienne Reul, Nicolas Vergely, J. L. Éditeur(s) : Amer Geophysical Union Résumé : Sea surface salinity (SSS) measured from space by the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is validated in the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean. 39 transects of ships of opportunity equipped with thermosalinographs (TSG) crossed that region from 2010 to 2012, providing a large database of ground truth SSS. SMOS SSS is also compared to Aquarius SSS. Large seasonal biases remain in SMOS and Aquarius SSS. In order to look at the capability of satellite SSS to monitor spatial variability, especially at scales less than 300 km (not monitored with the Argo network), we first apply a monthly bias correction derived from satellite SSS and In Situ Analysis System (ISAS) SSS differences averaged over the studied region. Ship SSS averaged over 25 km is compared with satellite and ISAS SSS. Similar statistics are obtained for SMOS, Aquarius and ISAS products (root mean square error of about 0.15 and global correlation coefficient r of about 0.92). However, in the above statistics, SSS varies due to both large scale and mesoscale (here, for scales around 100 km) variability. In order to focus on mesoscale variability, we consider SSS anomalies with respect to a monthly climatology. SMOS SSS and Aquarius SSS anomalies are more significantly correlated (r > 0.5) to TSG SSS anomaly than ISAS. We show the effective gain of resolution and coverage provided by the satellite products over the interpolated in situ data. We also show the advantage of SMOS (r=0.57) over Aquarius (r=0.52) to reproduce SSS mesoscale features. Journal Of Geophysical Research-oceans (0148-0027) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2014-12 , Vol. 119 , N. 12 , P. 8878-8896 Droits : 2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00210/32150/34082.pdf DOI:10.1002/2013JC009610 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00210/32150/ | Partager |
Sea Surface Salinity Observations from Space with the SMOS Satellite: A New Means to Monitor the Marine Branch of the Water Cycle Auteur(s) : Reul, Nicolas Fournier, Severine Boutin, Jacqueline Hernandez, Olga Maes, Christophe Chapron, Bertrand Alory, Gael Quilfen, Yves Éditeur(s) : Springer Résumé : While it is well known that the ocean is one of the most important component of the climate system, with a heat capacity 1,100 times greater than the atmosphere, the ocean is also the primary reservoir for freshwater transport to the atmosphere and largest component of the global water cycle. Two new satellite sensors, the ESA Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and the NASA Aquarius SAC-D missions, are now providing the first space-borne measurements of the sea surface salinity (SSS). In this paper, we present examples demonstrating how SMOS-derived SSS data are being used to better characterize key land–ocean and atmosphere–ocean interaction processes that occur within the marine hydrological cycle. In particular, SMOS with its ocean mapping capability provides observations across the world’s largest tropical ocean fresh pool regions, and we discuss from intraseasonal to interannual precipitation impacts as well as large-scale river runoff from the Amazon–Orinoco and Congo rivers and its offshore advection. Synergistic multi-satellite analyses of these new surface salinity data sets combined with sea surface temperature, dynamical height and currents from altimetry, surface wind, ocean color, rainfall estimates, and in situ observations are shown to yield new freshwater budget insight. Finally, SSS observations from the SMOS and Aquarius/SAC-D sensors are combined to examine the response of the upper ocean to tropical cyclone passage including the potential role that a freshwater-induced upper ocean barrier layer may play in modulating surface cooling and enthalpy flux in tropical cyclone track regions. Surveys In Geophysics (0169-3298) (Springer), 2014-05 , Vol. 35 , N. 3 , P. 681-722 Droits : Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00152/26334/24430.pdf DOI:10.1007/s10712-013-9244-0 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00152/26334/ | Partager Voir aussi Sea surface salinity SMOS satellite Passive microwave remote sensing Oceanic freshwater cycle Télécharger |
Sea surface freshening inferred from SMOS and ARGO salinity: impact of rain Auteur(s) : Boutin, Jacqueline Martin, Nicolas Reverdin, Gilles Yin, Xiaoming Gaillard, Fabienne Éditeur(s) : Copernicus Gesellschaft Mbh Résumé : The sea surface salinity (SSS) measured from space by the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission has recently been revisited by the European Space Agency first campaign reprocessing. We show that, with respect to the previous version, biases close to land and ice greatly decrease. The accuracy of SMOS SSS averaged over 10 days, 100 x 100 km(2) in the open ocean and estimated by comparison to ARGO (Array for Real-Time Geostrophic Oceanography) SSS is on the order of 0.3-0.4 in tropical and subtropical regions and 0.5 in a cold region. The averaged negative SSS bias (-0.1) observed in the tropical Pacific Ocean between 5 degrees N and 15 degrees N, relatively to other regions, is suppressed when SMOS observations concomitant with rain events, as detected from SSM/Is (Special Sensor Microwave Imager) rain rates, are removed from the SMOS-ARGO comparisons. The SMOS freshening is linearly correlated to SSM/Is rain rate with a slope estimated to -0.14 mm(-1) h, after correction for rain atmospheric contribution. This tendency is the signature of the temporal SSS variability between the time of SMOS and ARGO measurements linked to rain variability and of the vertical salinity stratification between the first centimeter of the sea surface layer sampled by SMOS and the 5 m depth sampled by ARGO. However, given that the whole set of collocations includes situations with ARGO measurements concomitant with rain events collocated with SMOS measurements under no rain, the mean -0.1 bias and the negative skewness of the statistical distribution of SMOS minus ARGO SSS difference are very likely the mean signature of the vertical salinity stratification. In the future, the analysis of ongoing in situ salinity measurements in the top 50 cm of the sea surface and of Aquarius satellite SSS are expected to provide complementary information about the sea surface salinity stratification. Ocean Science (1812-0784) (Copernicus Gesellschaft Mbh), 2013 , Vol. 9 , N. 1 , P. 183-192 Droits : Author(s) 2013. CC Attribution 3.0 License. http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00139/25073/23161.pdf DOI:10.5194/os-9-183-2013 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00139/25073/ | Partager |