N: 85.044 S: -85.044 E: 180 W: -180
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Description
SMAP Level-4 (L4) surface and root zone soil moisture data are provided in three products:
- SMAP L4 Global 3-hourly 9 km EASE-Grid Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture Geophysical Data (SPL4SMGP, DOI: 10.5067/9LNYIYOBNBR5)
- SMAP L4 Global 3-hourly 9 km EASE-Grid Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture Analysis Update (SPL4SMAU, DOI: 10.5067/0D8JT6S27BS9)
- SMAP L4 Global 9 km EASE-Grid Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture Land Model Constants (SPL4SMLM, DOI: 10.5067/5C36BVQZW28K).
For each product, SMAP L-band brightness temperature data from descending and ascending half-orbit satellite passes (approximately 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. local solar time, respectively) are assimilated into a land surface model that is gridded using an Earth-fixed, global cylindrical 9 km Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid, Version 2.0 (EASE-Grid 2.0) projection.
Version Description
Changes to this version include:
- The Level-4 soil moisture algorithm was re-calibrated to work with the substantially changed calibration of the assimilated Level-1C brightness temperatures.
- The brightness temperature scaling parameters in the updated Level-4 soil moisture algorithm are based on five years of SMAP observations (April 2015 – March 2020).
- The land surface modeling system underpinning the updated Level-4 soil moisture algorithm was revised in the following ways:
* Improved surface aerodynamic roughness length (z0) formulation, including use of a stem area index.
* Corrected an error in the fitting procedure used for one of the topography-related functions in the Catchment model, which potentially affected the simulation of soil moisture in about 2% of all land surface elements (De Lannoy et al. 2014).
* Updated calibration of the microwave radiative transfer model parameters.
- The updated Level-4 soil moisture algorithm includes major software upgrades, including full compliance with the Earth System Modeling Framework, a modular and extensible software design approach, for improved support of future science development.
- Minor bug fixes.
For the full major and minor version history, go to https://nsidc.org/data/smap/data_versions.
Product Summary
Platforms
GEOS-5
,
Instruments
NOT APPLICABLE
,
Spatial Extent
Spatial Resolution
9 Kilometers x 9 Kilometers
Spatial Reference System(s)
WGS 84 / NSIDC EASE-Grid 2.0 Global (EPSG:6933)
Location
GLOBAL LAND
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2015-03-31 to 2021-12-06
Temporal Resolution
3 Hour
Concept ID
C2872768275-NSIDC_CPRD
Data State
DEPRECATED
Number of Files/Granules
0
Processing Level
4
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Surface Soil Moisture
Citation
Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.
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Citation Copied
Reichle, R., De Lannoy, G., Koster, R., Crow, W., Kimball, J., & Liu, Q. (2020). SMAP L4 Global 3-hourly 9 km EASE-Grid Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture Geophysical Data, Version 5 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/9LNYIYOBNBR5 Date Accessed: 2026-07-28
Reichle, R., De Lannoy, G., Koster, R., Crow, W., Kimball, J., & Liu, Q. (2020). SMAP L4 Global 3-hourly 9 km EASE-Grid Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture Geophysical Data, Version 5 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/9LNYIYOBNBR5 Date Accessed: 2026-07-28
Reichle, Rolf, et al. “SMAP L4 Global 3-Hourly 9 Km EASE-Grid Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture Geophysical Data, Version 5.” NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center, 2020, https://doi.org/10.5067/9LNYIYOBNBR5. Date Accessed: 2026-07-28
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Documents
USER'S GUIDE
ALGORITHM THEORETICAL BASIS DOCUMENT (ATBD)
DATA PRODUCT SPECIFICATION
PRODUCT QUALITY ASSESSMENT
Publications Citing This Dataset
Filters
| Title | Year Sort ascending | Author | Topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assessing the impact of hurricanes on the carbon cycle using SMAP satellite and in-situ observations: Role of land cover and precipitation | Ray, Ram L., Kumar, Nirmal, Gurau, Sanjita, Raza, Ali, Khan, Nawab, Singh, Sudhir Kumar, Kayode, Esther Tosin, He, Yiping | Respiration Rate, Primary Production, Carbon, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Surface Soil Moisture, Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) | |
| Droughts in the Mekong BasinCurrent situation and future prospects | Kang, Hyunwoo, Sridhar, Venkataramana | Surface Soil Moisture | |
| Evaluation of root zone soil moisture products over the Huai River basin | Liu, En, Zhu, Yonghua, Calvet, Jean-Christophe, Lu, Haishen, Bonan, Bertrand, Zheng, Jingyao, Gou, Qiqi, Wang, Xiaoyi, Ding, Zhenzhou, Xu, Haiting, Pan, Ying, Chen, Tingxing | Geopotential Height, Altitude, Surface Temperature, Skin Temperature, Upper Air Temperature, Dew Point Temperature, Air Temperature, Cloud Top Temperature, Atmospheric Winds, Surface Winds, U/V Wind Components, Upper Level Winds, U/V Wind Components, Vertical Wind Velocity/Speed, Atmospheric Pressure, Sea Level Pressure, Cloud Top Pressure, Sea Level Pressure, Surface Pressure, Specific Humidity, Total Precipitable Water, Cloud Liquid Water/Ice, Atmospheric Water Vapor, Atmospheric Ozone, Oxygen Compounds, Boundary Layer Winds, Total Ozone, Heat Flux, Longwave Radiation, Shortwave Radiation, Humidity, Evapotranspiration, Rain, Precipitation Rate, Snow, Soil Moisture/Water Content, Soil Temperature, Land Surface Temperature, Snow Water Equivalent, Runoff, Ground Water, Surface Soil Moisture | |
| Soil Moisture: analysis of SMAP satellite products in plain zones | Degano, Maria Florencia, Beninato, Sabrina, Holzman, Mauro Ezequiel, Bayala, Martin Ignacio, Rivas, Raul Eduardo, Massari, Christian | Surface Soil Moisture, Brightness Temperature, Soil Moisture/Water Content | |
| IMERG Precipitation Improves the SMAP Level-4 Soil Moisture Product | Reichle, Rolf H., Liu, Qing, Ardizzone, Joseph V., Crow, Wade T., De Lannoy, Gabrielle J. M., Kimball, John S., Koster, Randal D. | Surface Soil Moisture, Soil Moisture/Water Content, Soil Temperature, Precipitation, Precipitation Amount, Precipitation Rate, Snow, Rain, Brightness Temperature | |
| Joint assimilation of satellite soil moisture and streamflow data for the hydrological application of a two-dimensional shallow water model | Garcia-Alen, G., Hostache, R., Cea, L., Puertas, J. | Surface Soil Moisture | |
| Increased Water Content in the Active Layer Revealed by RegionalScale InSAR and Independent Component Analysis on the Central QinghaiTibet Plateau | Chen, Jie, Wu, Tonghua, Liu, Lin, Gong, Wenyu, Zwieback, Simon, Zou, Defu, Zhu, Xiaofan, Hu, Guojie, Du, Erji, Wu, Xiaodong, Li, Ren, Yang, Sizhong | Surface Pressure, Heat Flux, Longwave Radiation, Shortwave Radiation, Surface Temperature, Humidity, Evapotranspiration, Surface Winds, Rain, Precipitation Rate, Snow, Soil Moisture/Water Content, Soil Temperature, Land Surface Temperature, Snow Water Equivalent, Runoff, Surface Soil Moisture | |
| Leveraging PreStorm Soil Moisture Estimates for Enhanced Land Surface Model Calibration in Ungauged Hydrologic Basins | Crow, Wade T., Dong, Jianzhi, Reichle, Rolf H. | Surface Pressure, Longwave Radiation, Shortwave Radiation, Surface Temperature, Evaporation, Humidity, Convection, Surface Winds, Rain, Land Surface Temperature, Surface Soil Moisture | |
| Blending Noah, SMOS, and in Situ soil moisture using multiple weighting and sampling schemes | Zhang, Ning, Quiring, Steven M., Ford, Trent W. | Surface Soil Moisture | |
| Future rice farming threatened by drought in the Lower Mekong Basin | Kang, Hyunwoo, Sridhar, Venkataramana, Mainuddin, Mohammed, Trung, Le Duc | Surface Soil Moisture | |
| Improved daily SMAP satellite soil moisture prediction over China using deep learning model with transfer learning | Li, Qingliang, Wang, Ziyu, Shangguan, Wei, Li, Lu, Yao, Yifei, Yu, Fanhua | Surface Soil Moisture |
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