Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity: Water Cycle Components from Decadal SMOS Observations

Dear Colleagues,

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite, launched in November 2009, is specifically designed to provide data regarding soil moisture and vegetation water content over continental surfaces as well as on ocean salinity. These features are key components of the water cycle, and their characterization at large scale is essential for weather and climatic studies. The SMOS instrument—an interferometer—measures the Earth surface’s passive microwave emission at L-band (1.4 GHz). It provides the brightness temperature at several angles and two polarizations (H and V polarization) with an average resolution of 40 km. Complete coverage of Earth is achieved in three days with data acquired at two daily timepoints of 6 am and 6 pm (local time).

After a decade of collecting SMOS data, the assimilation of these data have led to the development of numerous products linked with the global water cycle, such as water fraction, freeze/thaw, thin sea ice, root zone soil moisture, drought indices at low and high spatial resolution, flood risk indices, and improved precipitation.

This Special Issue solicits original manuscripts on innovative research—from work based on SMOS data to hydrological studies. We welcome contributions using SMOS data to examine hydrological changes during the last 10 years. The potential topics of this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• Decadal observations on global and/or regional water cycle components using SMOS data;
• Detection of hydrological extreme from SMOS data;
• New hydrological products based on SMOS data;
• Fusion of SMOS data and other(s) sensor(s) for hydrological purposes;
• Coupling SMOS observations and modeling in hydrology.

Dr. Marie Parrens
Dr. Ahmad Al Bitar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• SMOS
• hydrology
• large scale
• decadal observations
• soil moisture
• root zone soil moisture
• freeze
• vegetation water content
• water fraction
• L-band