The Establishment of the International Soil Moisture Network

Soil moisture estimates from spaceborne microwave sensors and land surface models are critical for understanding the global water and energy cycles. At higher latitudes and altitudes the freeze/thaw state of soil moisture controls evapotranspiration, thus providing the link between terrestrial water, energy, and carbon cycles. In addition, surface soil moisture is a determinant of the partitioning of surface precipitation into infiltration and runoff. The availability of better spatial estimates of surface soil moisture will therefore help, e.g. through assimilation into hydrometeorological models and improve model predictions and its predictive capabilities. The International Soil Moisture Working Group under GEWEX along with the CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites ) Working Group on Calibration and Validation have strongly contributed to the establishment of an integrated global soil moisture observing system as part of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) as envisaged by the Group on Earth Observation (GEO). The data hosting center – the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) – has been established with financial support from the European Space Agency and is operated by the Vienna University of Technology. In this presentation a short history will be given but emphasis will be on the future of the network, its expansion and how to contribute to and use the data from the network.