Abstract
Soil moisture is an important variable in the climate system. Understanding and predicting variations of surface temperature, precipitation, drought, flood, and the impacts of future climate change depend critically on knowledge of soil moisture variations. There are few long-term observations of soil moisture. Remote sensing of soil moisture is in its infancy and can observe only the wetness of the top centimeter or two of soil. The production of a global soil moisture data set will require an excellent land surface model and data assimilation system, validated with observations, that calculates soil moisture based on soil moisture observations and observations of precipitation, temperature, insolation, and other weather variables.
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