Arid Zone Research ›› 2021, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (3): 650-664.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2021.03.07

• Soil Resources • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Evaluation of Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS(AMSR-E) soil moisture products over China and its application in drought monitoring

WANG Jing1(),FANG Feng2(),HUANG Pengcheng2,YUE Ping1,LI Jiangping3,WANG Dawei2   

  1. 1. Lanzhou Institute of Arid Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Key Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Reducing Disaster of Gansu Province, Key Open Laboratory of Arid Climate Change and Disaster Reduction of China Meteorological Administration, Lanzhou 730020, Gansu, China
    2. Lanzhou Regional Climate Center, Lanzhou 730020, Gansu, China
    3. College of Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730020, Gansu, China
  • Received:2020-04-20 Revised:2021-03-24 Online:2021-05-15 Published:2021-06-17
  • Contact: Feng FANG E-mail:wangjing1102@126.com;fangfeng0802@126.com

Abstract:

Soil moisture plays an important role in surface energy exchange and climate change. Drought is a common natural disaster and soil moisture is the most intuitive index to reflect drought, therefore the use of microwave remote sensing to monitor surface soil moisture has obvious advantages. Microwave soil moisture products also play an important role in drought monitoring, but because of the difference of underlying surface and the accuracy of inversion algorithm, the application of soil moisture products is limited. Thus this study evaluated the accuracy of widely used AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS) soil moisture products in china and their role in drought monitoring. The results showed that AMSR-E can better reflect the soil moisture at different depths, most of the sites have a very significant correlation, but the correlation of 20 cm is lower than 10 cm, and the high correlation coefficient area is significantly reduced; The correlation at bare soil between AMSR-E and agricultural meteorological station is significantly higher than that of farmland. For most crop regions, there are obvious relationships of soil moisture between agricultural meteorological station and AMSR-E. For 10 cm depth, the best correlation was observed under the planting sorghum with a coefficient of 0.579, while for 20 cm depth, the best correlation was under cotton with a coefficient of 0.528. The correlation of spring, summer and autumn was higher, but the correlation in winter was slightly lower. In the case of planting crops, the correlations of soil moisture between station and AMSR-E are better in Northeast, South and Northwest China, while in the case of white land those in Northwest, Southwest and Central China are higher; AMSR-E has a wider range of soil moisture values than the agricultural test station, but the peak values of AMSR-E are different in different regions, and the distribution and fluctuation of the two kinds of soil moisture in North China are relatively consistent; AMSR-E can basically reflect the trend of soil moisture difference caused by drought in the north and rainy in the south; For most stations and most crop types, if the correlation of 10 cm between agricultural meteorological station and AMSR-E is good, that of 20 cm soil moisture will also have this performance. Secondly, there is a good correlation between AMSR-E soil moisture anomaly percentage extracted by AMSR-E and precipitation anomaly percentage, especially in the northwest and most areas of northern China. AMSR-E soil moisture products can better reflect the fluctuation of precipitation and the occurrence of drought.

Key words: AMSR-E soil moisture, soil moisture, precipitation anomaly index, crop types