Temporal Variability of Uncertainty in Pixel-Wise Soil Moisture: Implications for Satellite Validation

Abstract

In-situ soil moisture was widely used to validate and calibrate the satellite-retrieved data of different footprints. However, it contained unavoidable uncertainty when used as spatial representative. This paper examined the uncertainty in pixel-wise soil moisture designed for satellite validation in the HiWATER project. Two in-situ data sets were used for the examination, which were carefully designed to capture the spatial heterogeneity of soil moisture at different scales. Our results indicated that the pixel-wise uncertainty increased with increasing extent. At a small area, the uncertainty referred to the natural spatial variability of in-situ soil moisture. With respect to a large area, sampling error of spatial soil moisture played an important role, particularly of dry condition. Temporally, the uncertainty was higher during rainfall than that after then. It suggested that in-situ soil moisture could be more spatially representative at a small area after rainfall, valuable for satellite validation. Uncertainty was correlated to soil moisture. It was strongly correlated to spatial mean at a small scale and was to the spatial pattern at a large scale. Results of this study offered some clues to examine the uncertainty of in-situ soil moisture for satellite validation.