Electromagnetic characterization of soil-litter media: application to the simulation of the microwave emissivity of the ground surface in forests

In order to improve our knowledge of the emitted signal of forests at L-band (1.4 GHz) we focused this study on permittivity measurements of heterogenic natural media such as soil or litter consisting of plant debris and organic matter. This study was done in the context of the upcoming SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) satellite mission that will attempt to map surface soil moisture from L-band (1.4 GHz) passive microwave measurements. In the field of passive microwaves, very little information exists about the behaviour of the L-band signal of forests especially when litter is included in the soil-vegetation system. To date very few analyses have investigated the dielectric behaviour of the litter layer and its influence on the microwave emission of forests is generally neglected.

[1]  Zheng Bao,et al.  Improving Coherence of Complex Image Pairs Obtained by Along-Track Bistatic SARs Using Range–Azimuth Prefiltering , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[2]  J. Wigneron,et al.  A field experiment on microwave forest radiometry: L-band signal behaviour for varying conditions of surface wetness , 2007 .

[3]  A. Fung,et al.  Microwave Remote Sensing Active and Passive-Volume III: From Theory to Applications , 1986 .

[4]  W. Weir.  Automatic measurement of complex dielectric constant and permeability at microwave frequencies , 1974 .

[5]  T. Schmugge,et al.  Results from the Push Broom Microwave Radiometer flights over the Konza Prairie in 1985 , 1988 .

[6]  Yann Kerr,et al.  Impact of rain interception by vegetation and mulch on the L-band emission of natural grass , 2006 .

[7]  T. Schmugge,et al.  Vegetation effects on the microwave emission of soils , 1991 .

[8]  Richard K. Moore,et al.  Microwave remote sensing fundamentals and radiometry , 1981 .

[9]  Valery L. Mironov,et al.  Physically and Mineralogically Based Spectroscopic Dielectric Model for Moist Soils , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[10]  Amélioration de l'étude de l'étude de l'humidité de sols par radiométrie. Caractérisation et modélisation diélectriques de profils géologiques , 2005 .

[11]  V. H. Kaupp,et al.  Generalized refractive mixing dielectric model for moist soils , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[12]  J. Wigneron,et al.  Retrieving near-surface soil moisture from microwave radiometric observations: current status and future plans , 2003 .

[13]  Thomas J. Jackson,et al.  Soil water infiltration observation with microwave radiometers , 1998, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[14]  Y. Kerr,et al.  L-band Microwave Emission of the Biosphere (L-MEB) Model: Description and calibration against experimental data sets over crop fields , 2007 .

[15]  Jan Vanderborght,et al.  FOSMEX: Forest Soil Moisture Experiments With Microwave Radiometry , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[16]  Richard K. Moore,et al.  Microwave Remote Sensing - Active and Passive - Volume I - Microwave Remote Sensing Fundamentals and Radiometry , 1981 .

[17]  Mike Schwank,et al.  Testing a New Model for the L-Band Radiation of Moist Leaf Litter , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.