Globe Soil Moisture Investigation

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In response to an Announcement of Opportunity for the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Program (GLOBE) this project is designed to meet GLOBE goals and objectives of linking scientists and schoolchildren in a global information network with the ultimate goal of better understanding Earth's environment and changes that take place within it. This proposal consists of various segments addressing GLOBE Program needs: support for existing protocols, development of new protocols, and scientific research with GLOBE data. This proposal will the support and development of support the current set of GLOBE soil moisture protocols and learning activities. Soil moisture data collected by GLOBE students represents a unique and valuable resource to Earth scientists. The GLOBE student data have the potential to become the first readily accesible, long-term, and consistent record of near-surface soil moisture available on a global basis. This soil moisture data can be used to validate satellite microwave derived soil moisture estimates and to validate this component in GCM and mesoscale models. The prospect for direct validation of microwave data is limited by the current launch schedule, but there is much that can be done comparing these observations to seasonal patterns in forward models of microwave soil response. The area of weather and climate model initialization, updating, and validation holds more short-term promise, since the current parametrization of soil moisture is crude. Improving the representation of land-surface hydrology is a major focus of this research. In response to an Announcement of Opportunity for the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Program (GLOBE) this project is designed to meet GLOBE goals and objectives of linking scientists and schoolchildren in a global information network with the ultimate goal of better understanding Earth's environment and changes that take place within it. This proposal consists of various segments addressing GLOBE Program needs: support for existing protocols, development of new protocols, and scientific research with GLOBE data. This proposal will the support and development of support the current set of GLOBE soil moisture protocols and learning activities. Soil moisture data collected by GLOBE students represents a unique and valuable resource to Earth scientists. The GLOBE student data have the potential to become the first readily accesible, long-term, and consistent record of near-surface soil moisture available on a global basis. This soil moisture data can be used to validate satellite microwave derived soil moisture estimates and to validate this component in GCM and mesoscale models. The prospect for direct validation of microwave data is limited by the current launch schedule, but there is much that can be done comparing these observations to seasonal patterns in forward models of microwave soil response. The area of weather and climate model initialization, updating, and validation holds more short-term promise, since the current parametrization of soil moisture is crude. Improving the representation of land-surface hydrology is a major focus of this research.