Morfología Fluvial.-The ESA SMOS Mission: Validation Activities at the Valencia Anchor Station

Abstract

SUMMARY Since 2001, the Valencia Anchor Station (VAS) is being used for validation activities in the context of low spatial resolution Earth Observation Missions such as CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System), GERB (Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget), EPS (EUMETSAT Polar System), and is also being prepared for SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity). These missions have in common the low spatial resolution of their respective footprints (~50x50 km2) and the necessity of a well characterised and instrumented large scale area. The VAS has been selected as a primary validation site by the SMOS Mission. The reasonable homogeneous characteristics of the area make this site appropriate to undertake the validation of SMOS Level 2 land products (soil moisture (SM) and vegetation water content) during the Mission Commissioning Phase. A control area of 10x10 km2 was chosen to develop a network of ground SM measuring stations based on the definition of homogeneous physio-hydrological units attending to climatic, soil type, lithology, elevation, slope and vegetation cover conditions. The stations are linked via a wireless communication system to a central post accessible via internet. Area SM estimations are presently being compared to modelling products from ISBA – SURFEX. This paper shows the validation activities currently carried out at the VAS, especially the ESA SMOS Validation Rehearsal Campaign and the CNES CAROLS Scientific Airborne Campaign.