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Z. Bartalis, W. Wagner, V. Naeimi, S. Hasenauer:
"Validation of coarse resolution microwave soil moisture products";
Talk: IGARSS, Bosten, USA; 2008-07-06 - 2008-07-11; in: "Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2008", Vol. II (2008), ISBN: 978-1-4244-2808-3; 173 - 176.

The strong relationship between soil moisture content and
the soil dielectric constant offers a direct way of measuring
soil moisture with microwave sensors. Global coarseresolution
soil moisture datasets are currently retrieved from
active microwave spaceborne instruments (AMI onboard
ERS and ASCAT on Metop-A) and in the near future from
dedicated passive microwave satellite sensors (SMOS). This
article summarizes recent soil moisture research activities
and briefly discusses the strategies for validation and crosscomparison
of remotely sensed soil moisture datasets.
Special attention is given to the first validation of the soil
moisture data from the ASCAT instrument on Metop-A in
relation to the absolute and relative calibrations of the
instrument. A first assessment of the quality of the ASCAT
surface soil moisture is given by studies of stable targets
and the spatial and temporal extent of recent extreme
drought and rainfall events.