Multiscaling properties of soil moisture images and decomposition of large- and small-scale features using wavelet transforms

The scaling-multiscaling properties of passive microwave remotely sensed soil moisture images from the Washita '92 experiment are investigated. Analysis of moments of the soil moisture shows a log-log linearity of moments with spatial scale and the concavity of corresponding slopes with the order of moments. These properties suggest a deviation from simple scaling and the possible presence of multiscaling. By decomposing the soil moisture images into large-scale and small-scale fluctuation parts using wavelet transforms, it is shown that the small-scale fluctuation features obey a simple scaling law. The implications for such a decomposition and the coupling between the large-scale and small-scale features are discussed.