The potential of the COSMOS network to be a source of new soil moisture information for SMOS and SMAP

The COSMOS network will eventually consist of several hundred sensors throughout the United States that report kilometer-scale soil water content via measurement of the intensity of neutrons immediately above Earth´s surface. We show that COSMOS sensors must be corrected for the effects of growing vegetation. Once this phenomenon is completely understood the COSMOS network could be a useful source of information for the validation of both soil moisture and vegetation products obtained from current and future microwave remote sensing satellites.