Validation of microwave emission models by simulating AMSR-E brightness temperature data from ground-based observations

For several applications, spaceborne microwave measurements are used to get large scale information of snow- covered terrain. Emission models for soil, vegetation and snow are needed in extraction of snow parameters from satellite measurements. In this paper space-observed brightness temperature of snow-covered terrain is simulated from in situ measurements using HUT snow model, rough bare soil reflectivity model and boreal forest emission model. The results are compared with AMSR-E data. Correlations of time series between simulated and measured brightness temperatures were best on the highest frequencies being better than 0.7 on frequencies above 18 GHz.