Data Products  › Product & Algorithm › Caveats of Precipitation product
In order to utilize AMSR and AMSR-E data, product format and algorithm overviews, how to access products, and useful tools for display and analysis them are introduced.

Caveats for the standard products

Caveats on utilization of AMSR-E Soil Moisture products (Version 2.0)

Algorithm development PI : Prof. Toshio Koike (University of Tokyo)

The main caveats are described below when you use the AMSR-E Level 2 standard products (Version 2.0) of soil moisture. (Version 2.0) of soil moisture.
CHANGES from Version 1.0
Since Version 2.0 is the first release of AMSR-E, no Version 1.0 exists before this.

RETRIEVAL AREAS
It covers whole global land surfaces with the exception of permanent land ice masses in Greenland and Antarctica, and dense forest area.

RETRIEVAL RANGE and RETRIEVAL RANGE ERROR
SM is estimated with an error of 0 to 0.6 g/cm3. Based on the AMSR-E data in Mongolia from Oct 2002 to Sep 2003 (except for winter season) and its 12 matched-up ground observation data, the standard error is considered to be 0.043 g/cm3. Further validation will be needed for the accuracy of global estimation.

ESTIMATE in FORESTED REGIONS
Dense forest regions are masked out.

ESTIMATE in SNOW COVERED REGIONS
The estimation in the snow-covered area is not available. Masking for this region is currently under discussion.

References

Koike,T., Y. Nakamura, I. Kaihotsu, G. Davva, N. Matsuura, K. Tamagawa and H. Fujii, Development of an Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) Algorithm of Soil Moisture and Vegetation Water Content, Annual Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, JSCE, Vol. 48(2), pp217-222, 2004.