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Applications of microwave remote-sensing data in land data assimilation are a topic of current interest and importance due to their high temporal and spatial resolution and availability. However, there have been few studies on land surface sub-grid scale heterogeneity and calculating microwave wetland surface emissivity when directly assimilating gridded Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) satellite brightness temperature (BT) data to estimate soil moisture. How to assimilate gridded AMSR-E BT data for land surface model (LSM) grid cells including various land cover types, especially wetland, is worthy of careful study. The ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) method is able to resolve the non-linearity and discontinuity in forecast and observation operators, and is widely used in land data assimilation. In this study, considering the influences of land surface sub-grid scale heterogeneity, a satellite data simulation scheme based on the National Center for Atmosphere Research (NCAR) Community Land Model version 2.0 (CLM2.0), microwave Land Emissivity Model (LandEM), Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE-UA) algorithm and AMSR-E BT observation data is presented to simulate AMSR-E BT data and calibrate microwave wetland surface emissivity; then, a soil moisture data assimilation scheme is developed to directly assimilate the gridded AMSR-E BT data, which consists of the CLM2.0, LandEM and EnKF. The experimental results indicate that the calibrated microwave wetland surface emissivities possess excellent transportability, and that the assimilation scheme is practical and can significantly improve soil moisture estimation accuracy. This study provides a promising solution to improve soil moisture estimation accuracy through directly assimilating gridded AMSR-E BT data for various land cover types such as bare soil, vegetation, snow, lake and wetland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates emission behaviour at frequencies of 18.7, 36.5 and 89 GHz and an incidence angle of 55° over a snow-covered surface at the local scale observation site in Fraser, CO, USA, using both one-layer and two-layer emission models. The models employ the matrix doubling approach to implement the radiative-transfer equation based on dense media theory and the advanced integral equation model. When compared to Ground-Based Passive Microwave Radiometer (GBMR-7) observation on 21 February 2003, both the models could simulate the observed brightness temperature well, but the polarization difference between the observation and the models was smaller for the two-layer emission model than the one-layer model. In addition, we successfully interpreted the emission magnitude and polarization separation of a snow-removed surface by incorporating a Mie scattering transition layer above the soil medium. In this work, we also demonstrated the effect of snow fraction on the brightness temperature difference at 18.7 and 36.5 GHz over a snow-covered surface with the field observation. In conclusion, we demonstrate the snow impact on soil surface with snow depth (SD) and snow fraction variation through modelling and in situ data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]