Technical Note, Phase II, WP1100: SMOS Monitoring Report number III: December 2011 - December 2012

Contracted by the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is involved in global monitoring and data assimilation of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission data. For the first time, a new innovative remote sensing technique based on radiometric aperture synthesis is used in SMOS to observe soil moisture over continental surfaces and ocean salinity over oceans. Monitoring SMOS data (i.e. the comparison between the observed value and the model equivalent of that observation) is therefore of special interest and a requirement prior to assimilation experiments. This report is the third Monitoring Report delivered to ESA. The objective is to report on the monitoring activities of SMOS data over land and sea on a long term basis, investigating also the multi-angular and multi-polarised aspect of the SMOS observations. This report presents results for thirteen months (December 2011- December 2012) of SMOS data monitoring in Near Real Time obtained through the SMOS monitoring suite of ECMWF.