Reconciling Flagging Strategies for Multi-Sensor Satellite Soil Moisture Climate Data Records
, Robin van der Schalie 1, Nemesio Rodriguez-Fernandez 2, Andreas Colliander 3, Richard de Jeu 1, Wolfgang Preimesberger 4, Tracy Scanlon 4 and Wouter Dorigo 4Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is scientifically important for the understanding the performance passive microwave remote sensing products of soil moisture from SMOS and SMAP missions and ESA CCI SM products. Generally, the paper is well written and organized.
I have the following concerns.
- The selected dataset (SMAP, SMOS, CCI, AMSR2) are with different spatial resolution, which may introduce uncertainties related to the scale, how can you consider this issue?
- 2, key element of map, such as north arrow, coordinate, scale bar, should be included.
- I suggest the authors revise the Figures (including captions) and Tables so that they can be read and understood easily.
- Does it mean the increasing in flag number improve data quality and reduce data availability?
- How do use effective flags to ensure both high quality data and data availability?
- Does the flagging investigation provide any suggestions/implications for improving the retrieval algorithm for soil moisture?
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please find our reply in the attached pdf file.
Warm regards,
Mendy van der Vliet
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments to the Authors:
General comments:
The manuscript tries to reconcile the flagging strategies for the SMOS and SMAP. It is meaningful to improve the consistency between the products for some applications. The proposed strategy was also evaluated against two ground observation networks. It is suggested to strengthen the mechanism for uniforming their flagging systems. In addition, the orginaztion of the manuscript should be imporved due to the too much details in the sections of methods and results.
Specfic comments:
(1) There are different paramters (e.g. resolution) or features for the two products of SMOS and SMAP, the mechanism for uniforming their flagging systems should be clarified.
(2) It is suggest to clarify the relationship between soil moisture and climate data records in the title of manuscript. It is suggest to unify these terms of soil moisture climate data records, CCI soil moisture products, soil moisture climate records, CCI SM.
(3) There are some studies aimed to impoving the consistency between different products by conducting quality comparisons, sensor calibration, uniform SM retrievals and the merging of datasets. Please clarify the advantages of the proposed strategy in specific applications.
(4) Two SM datasets of SMOS and SMAP are focused on in the manuscript, and the Tb data products of AMSR2 is used for comparison and evaluation. It is suggest to clarify the reasonability for the comparison.
(5) It is suggested to reorganized the section of Methods. It may be clear to put the flagging algorithm in section 2.2 to the section of Methods. The differences in flagging systems in section 4.1 can be put together with the section 2.2.
(6) The conclusion of the manuscript is somewhat tedious. It is suggested to improve it.
(7) Page 4, Line 76, the full name of CCI and ESA should be mentioned in Page 1.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please find our reply in the attached pdf file.
Warm regards,
Mendy van der Vliet
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Please see attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please find our reply in the attached pdf file.
Warm regards,
Mendy van der Vliet
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The reviewer has no further comments.
