A multi-temporal, rst-based, amsr-e data analysis for radio frequency interference investigation: a possible impact on soil wetness retrievals

Several satellite microwave radiometers may be used for soil moisture retrieval. Among these, the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on Earth Observing System (AMSR-E), is the one that, mainly for its spectral characteristics, should have given more reliable results. Unfortunately, after its launch diffuse C-band Radio- Frequency Interferences (RFI) were discovered contaminating AMSR-E radiances over many areas in the world reducing and/or limiting its operating use. In this work, the multi-temporal RST (Robust Satellite Techniques) approach has been implemented using AMSR-E C-band data. The main objective of such an analysis has been to investigate the possible improvement, both in terms of quality and reliability, of AMSR-E soil moisture retrieval that, a differential approach like RST, may produce. Preliminary results obtained applying this approach to the flooding event which affected some European countries during the summer 2002, are presented in this paper. First obtained outcomes seem to confirm, also for comparison with the standard AMSR-E soil moisture products daily provided by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the efficiency of the proposed approach in monitoring soil wetness variations in the space-time domain by using AMSR-E C-band data without need auxiliary or ancillary information.