• → European Space Agency

      • Space for Europe
      • Space News
      • Space in Images
      • Space in Videos
    • About Us

      • Welcome to ESA
      • DG's news and views
      • For Member State Delegations
      • Business with ESA
      • Law at ESA
      • ESA Exhibitions
      • ESA Publications
      • Careers at ESA
      • ESAshop
    • Our Activities

      • Space News
      • Observing the Earth
      • Human Spaceflight
      • Space Transportation
      • Navigation
      • Space Science
      • Space Engineering & Technology
      • Operations
      • Telecommunications & Integrated Applications
      • Preparing for the Future
    • Careers at ESA

    • For Media

      • Media
      • ESA TV
      • Videos for professionals
      • Photos
    • For Educators

    • For Kids

    • ESA

    • Observing the Earth

    • SMOS

    • ESA's water mission
    • Introducing SMOS
    • Science in focus
    • Earth's water cycle
    • Mapping moisture
    • Sensing salinity
    • Surpassing expectations
    • About the mission
    • Facts and figures
    • Novel technology
    • Satellite
    • About the launch
    • Operations and data
    • Data flow
    • Data products
    • Essential groundwork
    • Multimedia
    • Image gallery
    • Video gallery
    • Downloads
    • Documents and publications

    ESA > Our Activities > Observing the Earth > SMOS

    Elbara in Tibet

    SMOS gets help from Tibet

    29 January 2016

    Ground measurements are essential for making sure that satellites deliver accurate information about our changing world. Although the Tibetan Plateau may not seem the obvious place to take such readings, this remote location is being used to check on ESA’s SMOS satellite.

    SMOS uses an innovative technique of capturing images of ‘brightness temperature’. Corresponding to radiation emitted from Earth’s surface, these images are used to produce maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity – two important variables in the water cycle.

    Even before the SMOS satellite was launched in 2009, field experiments formed an important part of its development. Since then, continual efforts have been made to ensure its data are fit for purpose.

    For this exercise to be as comprehensive as possible, in situ measurements have to be taken from all over the world. For example, to address the soil moisture part of the mission, measurements have to be taken from places that have different types of soil and vegetation cover.

    To provide comparable measurements from the ground, Gamma in Switzerland built a number of ‘Elbara’ L-band radiometers, two of which were recently placed on the Tibetan Plateau and in Poland.

    Measuring Tibetan soils

    While SMOS continues to deliver key information on soil moisture and ocean salinity to advance our understanding of the planet, it is becoming increasingly important for ‘real world’ applications such as forecasting weather and crop yields.

    Understanding the Tibetan Plateau’s water cycle is extremely important to manage Asia’s water resources because major rivers such as the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Yangtze and the Yellow River are all fed from the plateau.

    The plateau also plays a critical role in the onset, intensity and duration of the East Asian monsoon as strong surface heating and cooling affects the development of weather systems. It is also known that high-altitude ecosystems are vulnerable to climate change.

    Thanks to collaboration with the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the micrometeorological station near Maqu is now home to an Elbara.

    Prof. Bob Su from the university’s Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation said, “We know that the soil moisture and surface temperature trends on the Tibetan Plateau change with elevation and depend on the season.

    “However, we can only hypothesise about whether this is also connected soil–water freezing and thawing. The Elbara radiometer is the ideal tool to observe the freeze–thaw cycle and underlying processes.”

    SMOS

    With the third instrument now providing measurements in Tibet, a fourth has also been placed in Poland to measure a wetland site.

    ESA’s SMOS campaign coordinator, Tânia Casal, said, “Comparing SMOS brightness temperatures with similar measurements is certainly one key element in the quality control of our observations.

    “These ground-based Elbara measurements allow us to better understand complex processes and their influence on the SMOS signal in a well-controlled environment on the ground.”

    Rate this

    Views

    Share

    • Currently 5 out of 5 Stars.
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5
    Rating: 4.8/5 (51 votes cast)

    Thank you for rating!

    You have already rated this page, you can only rate it once!

    Your rating has been changed, thanks for rating!

    3027
    Tweet

    Related articles

    SMOS in orbit

    SMOS sings the song of ice and fire02 July 2015

    SMOS in orbit

    SMOS sings the song of ice and fire02 July 2015 While ESA’s water mission continues to deliver key information on soil moisture and ocean salinity to advance our understanding of Earth, it is becoming increasingly important for ‘real world’ applications, further demonstrating the societal benefit o...

    The three Elbara instruments

    New SMOS validation instruments ready for action10 July 2009

    The three Elbara instruments

    New SMOS validation instruments ready for action10 July 2009 With SMOS set to launch in November, preparations for the long-term monitoring and validation of the mission's data are moving ahead as three new purpose-built instruments are now ready to ship to key European validation sites.

    • Brightness temperature over Scandinavia
      Brightness temperature over Scandinavia
      SMOS technical info & data
    • Related links
    • Gamma Remote Sensing
    • Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation University of Twente
    • Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute Chinese Academy of Sciences
    • App Store
    • Subscribe
    • mobile version
    • ESA Observing the Earth Twitter

    @ESA_EO

    • LATEST ARTICLES
    • · ESA and NASA to investigate bringi…
    • · Seventh Sentinel satellite launche…
    • · Gaia creates richest star map of o…
    • · ESA teams ready for space
    • · Space smash: simulating when satel…
    • FAQ

    • Site Map

    • Contacts

    • Terms and conditions