The AMSR-E validation effort addresses data quality through several comprehensive calibration and validation programs. These programs characterize and document the accuracy and precision of AMSR-E observations and their derived products.

Pre-launch activities demonstrated the stability of the instrument software and began to demonstrate the validity of the retrieved products with in situ ground truth data. Post-launch efforts concentrate on validating the retrieved products using in situ data.

The validation effort includes three types of products: cryospheric data, including snow, ice, and sea ice; rainfall data; and soil moisture data. For complete information about the program, please see the AMSR-E Validation Plan (PDF file, 24.7 MB).

Campaign Coverage

The AMSR-E Validation campaign schedule shown here demonstrates the broad range of these calibration studies in terms of both temporal and geographic coverage. As shown in Figure 1, an interactive map depicts the locations of the AMSR-E Validation campaigns; mouse over the map for area detail and to link to the associated campaign pages.

Cryospheric Data

• Meltpond2000: 25 June - 6 July 2000
• Cold Land Processes Experiment
  • CLP IOP 1: 19 - 24 February 2002
  • CLP IOP 2: 25 - 30 March 2002
  • CLP IOP 3: 19 - 27 February 2003
  • CLP IOP 4: 25 March - 2 April 2003
• Alaska Sea Ice
• Beaufort Sea: April/May 2002
• Sea of Okhotsk, Japan: 4, 11 February 2003
• Beaufort/Northern Bering Seas: 6 - 23 March 2003
• Bering and Chukchi Seas: February/March 2005
• East Antarctic Sea Ice: September - October 2003
• West Antarctic (Punta Arenas) Sea Ice: August 2003/October 2004

Rainfall Data

• Eureka, CA: October 2002 - September 2004
• Iowa City, IA: October 2002 - September 2004
• BALTEX: October 1999 - February 2002
• Wakasa Bay
  • January/February 2001
  • 3 January - 14 February 2003

Soil Moisture Data

• SMEX02: Iowa (US), 24 June - 15 July 2002
• SMEX03: Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama (US): 23 June - 18 July 2003
• SMEX03: Brazil: 1 - 10 September 2003
• SMEX04 North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME):
  Mexico and Arizona: 15 July - 15 August 2004
• SMEX05: Iowa (US): 13 June - 4 July 2005

Figure 1. Global map depicting the locations of the 2002-4 AMSR-E validation campaigns, including area detail for regional study areas in North America; mouse over the map for area detail.