THE RADIOBRIGHTNESS THERMAL INERTIA MEASURE OF SOIL-MOISTURE

Radiobrightness Thermal Inertia (RTI) is proposed as a method for using day-night differences in satellite-sensed radiobrightness to monitor the moisture of Great Plains soils. Diurnal thermal and radiobrightness models are used to examine the sensitivity of the RTI method. Model predictions favor use of the 37.0 and 85.5 GHz, H-polarized channels of the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I). The model further predicts that overflight times near 2:00 a.m./p.m. would be nearly optimal for RTI, that midnight/noon and 4:00 a.m./p.m. are nearly as good, but that the 6:00 a.m./p.m. overflight times of the current SSM/I are particularly poor. Data from the 37.0 GHz channel of the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) are used to demonstrate that the method is plausible.