Validation of Two Soil Moisture Products from ERS Scatterometer Data over East China

In this study, two soil wetness products- Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) and Soil Water Index (SWI), derived from ERS (European Remote Sensing) scatterometer data are validated based on the in situ measurements in north and east China. Results indicate that the soil wetness climatology in the ERS products is similar distributed with the observations, showing wet status in the northeast and southeast, while dry status in the northwest of the concerned domain. Moreover, the SSM and SWI have the ability to represent the principal characteristics of the spatial distributions for the soil moisture anomalies during transitional seasons. Regions of high variability for the soil moisture include northeast China, the middle-lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Yellow-Huaihe River Basin in April; while a band of high variability is found along the semi-arid regions in October.