Global scale monitoring of Earth's surface by using AMSR-E microwave radiometric data

In this paper, microwave emission data collected with the multi-channel radiometer AMSR-E in 2002- 2004 on some test sites, have been related to surface features obtained from ground information and cartography. The areas, selected in different climatic regions of the world, are characterized by various meteorological conditions and vegetation covers, from tundra to dense forests. In general, the analysis pointed out the capability of the multi-temporal and multi-frequency microwave radiometers in the global scale monitoring of soil moisture as well as snow and vegetation covers, in the limits of the spatial resolution offered by this sensor. An algorithm based on a Neural Network has been implemented, tested with experimental data collected during SMEX02, and used to generate global maps of soil moisture.