First use of the Meteor-M No. 2/MTVZA-GYa radiometer for remote sensing of soil moisture and temperature in the Arctic region

In this paper, the results of radiothermal remote sensing of moisture and temperature of thawed soil on a test site in the Taymyr Peninsula using full-polarimetric observations of brightness temperature at the frequency of 10.7 GHz are presented. The brightness temperature data were obtained from MTVZA-GYa radiometer on a board of Meteor-M No. 2 satellite with footprint area near the Norilsk city and Khatanga, the Russia Federation. The MTVZA-GYa data covered the period from January 1 to December 31, 2015. The method to retrieve the soil moisture and temperature was based on solving an inverse problem by minimizing the norm of the residuals between the observed and predicted values of the brightness temperature. The calculation of the brightness temperature was performed using a semi-empirical model of radio-thermal emission the parameters of which have been pre-calibrated at the test sites in the area of Norilsk and Khatanga, as well as using a soil dielectric model with high in organic matter. The dielectric model was especially designed based on laboratory measurements of the complex permittivity of the organic-rich soil samples, which were collected at the test site near Norilsk city. As a result, the values of the root-mean-square error between the retrieved and measured soil temperatures and soil moisture were not exceed 6.5o 0.06cm
³
/cm
³
, respectively for both test sites. These results indicate the perspectives of using the full-polarimetric observations of MTVZA-GYa radiometer on a board of Meteor-M No. 2 satellite in the X-band for the purpose of measuring the soil temperature and soil moisture in the Arctic region.