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Snow depth estimation with passive microwave (PM) remote sensing is challenged by spatial variations in the Earth's surface, e.g., snow metamorphism, land cover types, and topography. Thus, traditional static snow depth retrieval algorithms cannot capture snow thickness well. In this study, we present a new operational retrieval algorithm, hereafter referred to as the pixel-based method (0.25° × 0.25° grid-level), to provide more accurate and nearly real-time snow depth estimates. First, the reference snow depth was retrieved using a previously proposed model in which a microwave snow emission model was coupled with a machine learning (ML) approach. In this process, an effective grain size (effGS) value was optimized by utilizing the snow microwave emission model, and then the nonlinear relationship between snow depth and multiple predictive variables, e.g., effGS, longitude, elevation, and brightness temperature (Tb) gradients, was established with the ML technique to retrieve reference snow depth data. To select a robust and well-performing ML approach, we compared the performance of widely used support vector regression (SVR), artificial neural network (ANN) and random forest (RF) algorithms over China. The results show that the three ML models performed similarly in snow depth estimation, which was attributed to the inclusion of effGS in the training samples. In this study, the RF model was used to retrieve the snow depth reference dataset due to its slightly stronger robustness according to our comparison of results. Second, the pixel-based algorithm was built based on the retrieved reference snow depth dataset and satellite Tb observations (18.7 GHz and 36.5 GHz) from Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) during the 2012–2020 period. For the pixel-based algorithm, the fitting coefficients were achieved dynamically pixel by pixel, making it superior to the traditional static methods. Third, the built pixel-based algorithm was verified using ground-based observations and was compared to the AMSR2, GlobSnow-v3.0, and ERA5-land products during the 2012–2020 period. The pixel-based algorithm exhibited an overall unbiased root mean square error (unRMSE) and R2 of 5.8 cm and 0.65, respectively, outperforming GlobSnow-v3.0, with unRMSE and R2 values of 9.2 cm and 0.22, AMSR2, with unRMSE and R2 values of 18.5 cm and 0.13, and ERA5-land, with unRMSE and R2 values of 10.5 cm and 0.33, respectively. However, the pixel-based algorithm estimates were still challenged by the complex terrain, e.g., the unRMSE was up to 17.4 cm near the Tien Shan Mountains. The proposed pixel-based algorithm in this study is a simple and operational method that can retrieve accurate snow depths based solely on spaceborne PM data in comparatively flat areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Near-surface air temperature (Ta) is an important physical parameter that reflects climate change. Many methods are used to obtain the daily maximum (Tmax⁡), minimum (Tmin⁡), and average (Tavg) temperature, but are affected by multiple factors. To obtain daily Ta data (Tmax⁡ , Tmin⁡ , and Tavg) with high spatio-temporal resolution in China, we fully analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of various existing data. Different Ta reconstruction models were constructed for different weather conditions, and the data accuracy was improved by building correction equations for different regions. Finally, a dataset of daily temperature (Tmax⁡ , Tmin⁡ , and Tavg) in China from 1979 to 2018 was obtained with a spatial resolution of 0.1 ∘. For Tmax⁡ , validation using in situ data shows that the root mean square error (RMSE) ranges from 0.86 to 1.78 ∘ , the mean absolute error (MAE) varies from 0.63 to 1.40 ∘ , and the Pearson coefficient (R2) ranges from 0.96 to 0.99. For Tmin⁡ , the RMSE ranges from 0.78 to 2.09 ∘ , the MAE varies from 0.58 to 1.61 ∘ , and the R2 ranges from 0.95 to 0.99. For Tavg , the RMSE ranges from 0.35 to 1.00 ∘ , the MAE varies from 0.27 to 0.68 ∘ , and the R2 ranges from 0.99 to 1.00. Furthermore, various evaluation indicators were used to analyze the temporal and spatial variation trends of Ta , and the Tavg increase was more than 0.03 ∘ C yr -1 , which is consistent with the general global warming trend. In summary, this dataset has high spatial resolution and high accuracy, which compensates for the temperature values (Tmax⁡ , Tmin⁡ , and Tavg) previously missing at high spatial resolution and provides key parameters for the study of climate change, especially high-temperature drought and low-temperature chilling damage. The dataset is publicly available at 10.5281/zenodo.5502275 (Fang et al., 2021a). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Total precipitable water (TPW) is a key parameter in the study of water cycle and climate change. High-resolution TPW is critical for understanding regional water cycle processes. Besides, high-resolution TPW is also an important input parameter for atmospheric correction which helps to eliminate atmospheric impact and improve surface parameter retrieval accuracy. However, obtaining high-resolution TPW in all-weather condition from a single satellite sensor still has many limitations and challenges. This paper proposed a new fusion method to obtain all-weather TPW with a high spatial resolution of 0.05° × 0.05° by taking advantage of various water vapor related variables derived from microwave and near-infrared (NIR) remote sensing. At the same time, the contribution of variables in the fusion algorithm was analyzed to find the best fusion scheme. There are two major improvements in the newly developed fusion method. First, a new water vapor sensitive parameter – ratio of brightness temperature polarization difference between frequencies 89 and 36.5 GHz (∆ Tb 89 / ∆ Tb 36.5) was first introduced in the fusion algorithm to provide more high spatial resolution TPW information in both clear and cloudy sky conditions, and the accuracy of the fused TPW was significantly improved when the parameter ∆ Tb 89 / ∆ Tb 36.5 was introduced. Second, a two-steps fusion method was proposed to produce a fused high spatial resolution TPW by fully taking advantage of high quality TPW information from AMSR2 TPW and ∆ Tb 89 / ∆ Tb 36.5 in cloudy condition in the first step, and high quality TPW from MODIS in clear sky condition in the second step. The TPW derived from global navigation satellite system (GNSS) stations of Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC) was used to validate the fused TPW and original TPW from MYD05 and AMSR2 at spatial resolution of 0.05° × 0.05°. According to the validation, the correlation coefficient, root mean square error, and relative root mean square error between the fused TPW and the GNSS TPW are 0.96, 4.23 mm and 23.67% respectively. The root mean square errors were improved by 19.96% and 27.32%, respectively, compared to the original MYD05 TPW and AMSR2 TPW. • A new two-step TPW fusion method was proposed based on MW and NIR remote sensing. • The influence of ∆Tb 89 /∆Tb 36.5 on fused TPW was analyzed in all weather conditions. • The fused TPW had a significant improvement compared to the original TPW datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ta (Near-surface air temperature) is an important physical parameter that reflects climate change. Although there are currently many methods to obtain the daily maximum (Tmax), minimum (Tmin), and average (Tavg) temperature (meteorological stations, remote sensing, and reanalysis data), these methods are affected by many factors. In order to obtain daily Ta data (Tmax, Tmin, and Tavg) with high spatial and temporal resolution in China, we fully analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of various existing data (reanalysis, remote sensing, and in situ data). Different Ta reconstruction models are constructed for different weather conditions, and we further improve data accuracy through building correction equations for different regions. Finally, a dataset of daily temperature (Tmax, Tmin, and Tavg) in China from 1979 to 2018 was obtained with a spatial resolution of 0.1°. For Tmax, validation using in situ data shows that the root mean square error (RMSE) ranges from 0.86 °C to 1.78 °C, the mean absolute error (MAE) varies from 0.63 °C to 1.40 °C, and the Pearson coefficient (R2) ranges from 0.96 to 0.99. For Tmin, RMSE ranges from 0.78 °C to 2.09 °C, the MAE varies from 0.58 °C to 1.61 °C, and the R2 ranges from 0.95 to 0.99. For Tavg, RMSE ranges from 0.35 °C to 1.00 °C, the MAE varies from 0.27 °C to 0.68 °C, and the R2 ranges from 0.99 to 1.00. Furthermore, a variety of evaluation indicators were used to analyze the temporal and spatial variation trends of Ta, and the Tavg increase was more than 0.0 °C/a, which is consistent with the general global warming trend. In conclusion, this dataset had a high spatial resolution and reliable accuracy, which makes up for the previous missing temperature value (Tmax, Tmin, and Tavg) at high spatial resolution. This dataset also provides key parameters for the study of climate change, especially high-temperature drought and low-temperature chilling damage, which is publicly available with the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5502275 (Fang et al., 2021a). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil moisture is an important parameter required for agricultural drought monitoring and climate change models. Passive microwave remote sensing technology has become an important means to quickly obtain soil moisture across large areas, but the coarse spatial resolution of microwave data imposes great limitations on the application of these data. We provide a unique soil moisture dataset (0.05 ∘ , monthly) for China from 2002 to 2018 based on reconstruction model-based downscaling techniques using soil moisture data from different passive microwave products – including AMSR-E and AMSR2 (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System) JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Level 3 products and SMOS-IC (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity designed by the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, INRA, and Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la BIOsphère, CESBIO) products – calibrated with a consistent model in combination with ground observation data. This new fine-resolution soil moisture dataset with a high spatial resolution overcomes the multisource data time matching problem between optical and microwave data sources and eliminates the difference between the different sensor observation errors. The validation analysis indicates that the accuracy of the new dataset is satisfactory (bias: - 0.057, - 0.063 and - 0.027 m3m-3 ; unbiased root mean square error (ubRMSE): 0.056, 0.036 and 0.048; correlation coefficient (R): 0.84, 0.85 and 0.89 on monthly, seasonal and annual scales, respectively). The new dataset was used to analyze the spatiotemporal patterns of soil water content across China from 2002 to 2018. In the past 17 years, China's soil moisture has shown cyclical fluctuations and a slight downward trend and can be summarized as wet in the south and dry in the north, with increases in the west and decreases in the east. The reconstructed dataset can be widely used to significantly improve hydrologic and drought monitoring and can serve as an important input for ecological and other geophysical models. The data are published in Zenodo at 10.5281/zenodo.4738556 (Meng et al., 2021a). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil moisture is an important parameter required for agricultural drought monitoring and climate change models. Passive microwave remote sensing technology has become an important means to quickly obtain soil moisture over large areas, but the coarse spatial resolution of microwave data imposes great limitations on the application of these data. We provide a unique soil moisture dataset (0.05°, monthly) for China from 2002-2018 based on reconstruction model-based downscaling techniques using soil moisture data from different passive microwave products (including the AMSR-E/2 Level 3 products and the SMOS-INRA-CESBIO (SMOS-IC) products) calibrated with a consistent model in combination with ground observation data. This new fine-resolution soil moisture dataset with a high spatial resolution overcomes the multisource data time matching problem between optical and microwave data sources and eliminates the difference between the different sensor observation errors. The validation analysis indicates that the accuracy of the new dataset is satisfactory (bias: -0.024, -0.030 and -0.016 m3/m3, unbiased root mean square error (ubRMSE): 0.051, 0.048 and 0.042, correlation coefficient (R): 0.82, 0.88, and 0.90 on monthly, seasonal and annual scales, respectively). The new dataset was used to analyze the spatiotemporal patterns of soil water content across China from 2002 to 2018. In the past 17 years, China's soil moisture has shown cyclical fluctuations and a downward trend (slope = -0.167, R = 0.750) and can be summarized as wet in the south and dry in the north, with increases in the west and decreases in the east. The reconstructed dataset can be widely used to significantly improve hydrologic and drought monitoring and can serve as an important input for ecological and other geophysical models. The data are published in the Zenodo at http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4049958 (Meng et al., 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land surface temperature (LST) is a key variable for high temperature and drought monitoring and climate and ecological environment research. Due to the sparse distribution of ground observation stations, thermal infrared remote sensing technology has become an important means of quickly obtaining ground temperature over large areas. However, there are many missing and low-quality values in satellite-based LST data because clouds cover more than 60 % of the global surface every day. This article presents a unique LST dataset with a monthly temporal resolution for China from 2003 to 2017 that makes full use of the advantages of MODIS data and meteorological station data to overcome the defects of cloud influence via a reconstruction model. We specifically describe the reconstruction model, which uses a combination of MODIS daily data, monthly data and meteorological station data to reconstruct the LST in areas with cloud coverage and for grid cells with elevated LST error, and the data performance is then further improved by establishing a regression analysis model. The validation indicates that the new LST dataset is highly consistent with in situ observations. For the six natural subregions with different climatic conditions in China, verification using ground observation data shows that the root mean square error (RMSE) ranges from 1.24 to 1.58 ∘ C, the mean absolute error (MAE) varies from 1.23 to 1.37 ∘ C and the Pearson coefficient (R2) ranges from 0.93 to 0.99. The new dataset adequately captures the spatiotemporal variations in LST at annual, seasonal and monthly scales. From 2003 to 2017, the overall annual mean LST in China showed a weak increase. Moreover, the positive trend was remarkably unevenly distributed across China. The most significant warming occurred in the central and western areas of the Inner Mongolia Plateau in the Northwest Region, and the average annual temperature change is greater than 0.1 K (R>0.71 , P<0.05), and a strong negative trend was observed in some parts of the Northeast Region and South China Region. Seasonally, there was significant warming in western China in winter, which was most pronounced in December. The reconstructed dataset exhibits significant improvements and can be used for the spatiotemporal evaluation of LST in high-temperature and drought-monitoring studies. The data are available through Zenodo at 10.5281/zenodo.3528024 (Zhao et al., 2019). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Total precipitable water (TPW) is an important key factor in the global water cycle and climate change. The knowledge of TPW characteristics at spatial and temporal scales could help us to better understand our changing environment. Currently, many algorithms are available to retrieve TPW from optical and microwave sensors. There are still no available TPW data over land from FY-3D MWRI, which was launched by China in 2017. However, the TPW product over land is a key element for the retrieval of many ecological environment parameters. In this paper, an improved algorithm was developed to retrieve TPW over land from the brightness temperature of FY-3D MWRI. The major improvement is that surface emissivity, which is a key parameter in the retrieval of TPW in all-weather conditions, was developed and based on an improved algorithm according to the characteristics of FY-3D MWRI. The improvement includes two aspects, one is selection of appropriate ancillary data in estimating surface emissivity parameter Δε18.7/Δε23.8 in clear sky conditions, and the other is an improvement of the Δε18.7/Δε23.8 estimation function in cloudy conditions according to the band configuration of FY-3D MWRI. Finally, TPW retrieved was validated using TPW observation from the SuomiNet GPS and global distributed Radiosonde Observations (RAOB) networks. According to the validation, TPW retrieved using observations from FY-3D MWRI and ancillary data from Aqua MODIS had the best quality. The root mean square error (RMSE) and correlation coefficient between the retrieved TPW and observed TPW from RAOB were 5.47 and 0.94 mm, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The ANN algorithm model can quickly and accurately calculate the hourly SSR by directly connect the satellite data and in-situ SSR measurements in a simple way rather than the complex scheme based on the lookup table estimation approach. • The ANN model was applied to Himawari-8 geostationary satellite data and the estimated SSR show a good agreement with in-situ observation. • We analyze the spatio-temporal characteristics of SSR in China on the hourly, daily and monthly scale in 2016. The previous studies have less to analyze the characteristics of SSR spatio-temporal at the daily scale, especially at the hourly scale. In this study, we use an artificial neural network (ANN) method to estimate the downward surface shortwave radiation (DSSR) over China from Himawari-8 geostationary satellite data. As the training data of the DSSR estimation algorithm, ground-observed DSSR (GOS) data is compiled to complete the ANN method. GOS data from 89 stations over mainland China in 2016 are divided into training, testing and validation samples with a proportion of 3:1:1, in order to perform the DSSR estimation and accuracy validation. As a result, estimated DSSR from Himawari-8 data in 2016 shows good consistency with validation samples of ground observed DSSR, holding the determination coefficient and root mean square error of 0.90 and 88.86 W m−2 for the hourly mean DSSR, and 0.96 and 24.46 W m−2 for the daily mean DSSR, respectively. To investigate the spatio-temporal variation of daily DSSR in China, we performed the first empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis based on the ANN-derived DSSR estimates. The spatial pattern of the first EOF mode reveals a larger DSSR variation in northeast and northwest China, in contrast to the smallest variation appeared in the southwest. The hourly ANN-derived DSSR analysis shows a peak point at noon (local time) in each region, particularly in the Tibetan Plateau. In terms of the monthly and annual DSSR spatial distribution, the regions with higher elevations, such as Northwest, Tibetan Plateau and Inner Mongolia Plateau in China, have larger DSSR than other regions. In contrast, relatively low DSSR appears in the southwest and the northeast of China through the year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]