Average rainfall 2001-2016, global tropics

Map: Average rainfall 2001-2016, global tropics

MODIS TWI assimilated to SMAP - h19v08

This post includes a single movie, showing the assimilation of MODIS derived soil moisture estimates with soil moisture estimated from SMAP. The methods for deriving the images and movies are presented here.

In the animation below, SMAP and TWI are both resampled to a 9 km spatial resolution. Each frame represents a 16 day period, with data force filled by a combination of interpolation and seasonal cycle long term average. The upper frames show SMAP and the the original TWI soil moisture estimates, the lower frames show TWI completely assimilated to SMAP (left), and a 50 % assimilation for non-flooded cells and with cells indicated as flooded or very wet in TWI retaining their original TWI values (right).

SMAP versus MODIS TWI soil moisture estimates for parts of Africa (MODIS tile h19v08) 2015 to 2018 (see text).