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Full catalog/SMAP_L1_L3_ANC_STATIC
SMAP_L1_L3_ANC_STATIC·v1·dataset

Fixed reference info for SMAP soil moisture data

Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) L1-L3 Ancillary Static Data V001
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level NA active BinaryHDF5ASCII
In plain English

What it measures. A large bundle of fixed reference information (over 50 data sets) used to process SMAP soil-moisture data, including land and water masks, terrain elevation and slope, soil composition, vegetation, and surface roughness.

How it's made. Compiled as static ancillary inputs for the SMAP mission rather than measured by a satellite instrument; it draws on sources like digital elevation models.

How & where you'd use it. A behind-the-scenes input that helps convert raw SMAP instrument readings into usable soil-moisture products; it's for the processing pipeline, not for direct everyday use.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATION › DIGITAL ELEVATION/TERRAIN MODEL (DEM)LAND SURFACE › LAND USE/LAND COVER › LAND USE/LAND COVER CLASSIFICATIONLAND SURFACE › LAND USE/LAND COVER › LAND USE/LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION › VEGETATION INDEX › NORMALIZED DIFFERENCE VEGETATION INDEX (NDVI)LAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL CLASSIFICATIONLAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL TEXTURELAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › SURFACE ROUGHNESS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2015-01-14 → ongoing
  • Measured byNOT APPLICABLE (NOT APPLICABLE)
  • Processing levelLevel NA
  • Spatial extent-180, -86.4, 180, 86.4
  • FormatsBinary, HDF5, ASCII
  • StatusACTIVE

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

This ancillary SMAP product contains more than 50 data sets. These data sets contain the inputs necessary to create SMAP products from raw instrument counts, such as permanent masks (land, water, forest, urban, mountain, etc.), the grid cell average elevation and slope derived from a Digital Elevation Model (DEM), permanent open water fraction, soils information (primarily sand and clay fraction), vegetation parameters, and surface roughness parameters.

Get the data

smap_l1_l3_anc_static_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SMAP_L1_L3_ANC_STATIC",
    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.