Soil moisture algorithm development and validation for the ADEOS-II/AMSR

The wavelength in the microwave region has sensitivity to the scattering effect of leaves, microwave remote sensing has potential of the measurement of water content of vegetation. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiaometer (AMSR) is a passive microwave radiometer with frequency ranges from 6.9 GHz to 89 GHz. It will be flown on-board of the United States Earth Observation System (EOS) PM-], "AQUA", by NASA and the Advanced Earth Observing, Satellite-II (ADEOS-II) by National Space Development Agency (NASDA) of Japan. With a large antenna, AMSR will provide the best spatial resolution of multi-frequency radiometry from space. The spatial resolution of the ADEOS-II AMSR varies from approximately 50 km at 6.9 GHz to 5 km at 89 GHz. The AQUA AMSR-E has slightly coarser spatial resolution due to its 1.6m antenna aperture instead of the 2m one for ADEOS-II AMSR. The antenna beams scan by continuous rotation along a conical surface, which intersects the Earth's surface at an angle of 55 degree.