Data-Based Disaggregation of SMOS Soil Moisture

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) microwave radiometer is used to retrieve surface soil moisture with a grid resolution of 15 km. Due to various contributing factors SMOS soil moisture is known to have bias with respect to in situ soil moisture measurements and land surface models. For this reason it is common practice to match the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of retrieved soil moisture prior to analysis. Using the concept of temporal stability this study demonstrates that CDF matching is effective for correcting the bias at both grid and sub-grid scales with minimal impact on the time in-variant component of SMOS error.