Ground sensor data to check SMAP soil readings — NSIDC-0712

In plain English

What it measures. Side-by-side comparisons of soil moisture measured from space by the SMAP satellite versus soil moisture measured by sensors on the ground at carefully chosen reference sites.

How it's made. Built by matching SMAP's radar and radiometer soil-moisture estimates with on-the-ground readings from validation sites.

How & where you'd use it. Used to check and grade how accurate the satellite's soil-moisture products really are — a quality-control resource rather than a general-purpose map.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENTLAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

Time span2015-04-01 → 2021-03-31
Measured byGROUND STATIONS (SOIL MOISTURE PROBE, SOIL TEMPERATURE PROBE) · SMAP (SMAP L-BAND RADAR, SMAP L-BAND RADIOMETER)
Processing levelLevel NA
Spatial extent-180, -85.044, 180, 85.044
FormatsASCII
StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time

Official description

SMAP radiometer and radar soil moisture data products are matched with in situ-based soil moisture estimates from core validation sites to produce this data set. These data provide performance assessments of various SMAP soil moisture products.

Get the data

nsidc-0712_access.py

import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NSIDC-0712",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRD

Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.

What's measured

Coverage & cadence

What you can do with it

Get the data

Official links