Temporal Gap‐Filling of 12‐Hourly SMAP Soil Moisture Over the CONUS Using Water Balance Budgeting

Abstract

AbstractTemporal gaps in satellite‐based soil moisture (SM) products are a persistent issue. This study presents an entirely observation‐based method to derive volumetric SM content for filling gaps in Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) retrievals. Using a water balance equation, 12‐hr topsoil water amount variations are determined based on observed precipitation from the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (inflow) and a hydrologic loss function (outflow) built on SMAP dry‐downs. A temporally seamless SM product, composed of SMAP dry‐downs and precipitation‐driven moisture approximations, was generated as a secondary outcome in determining optimal water balance parameters. This data set maintains the original SMAP SM dynamics with a median Pearson correlation (R) of 0.69 and an unbiased root‐mean‐square error (ubRMSE) of 0.05 m3/m3. Using these parameters and available SMAP observations, a 12‐hourly SM product was produced over the conterminous United States. Validated against in situ measurements, this 12‐hourly SM product exhibits good performance with a median R of 0.63 and captures most SM peaks induced by heavy rainfall. A time series examination revealed the produced 12‐hourly SM product closely corresponds to in situ SM variations and outperforms two other SMAP‐based 12‐hourly SM products gap‐filled using temporal linear interpolation and a three‐dimensional smoothing approach, especially during sparse SMAP data periods. The proposed scheme's validity is further verified by the comparable performance of the exclusive filled‐on SM estimates. Utilizing the 12‐hourly SM data set and its paired hydrologic losses could enhance the quantification connections among the hydrologic components and benefit the understanding of land‐surface hydrology.