Investigating the Impact of Soil Moisture on Thermal Infrared Emissivity Using ASTER Data

This study investigates the effects of soil moisture (SM) on land surface emissivity (LSE) using the Advanced Space-borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) LSE data acquired in Heihe Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research (HiWATER). Three bare surface sites with automatic meteorological stations that collected long-term SM data were chosen to evaluate the SM impact. The ASTER LSE retrieval was performed using the water vapor scaling method to improve the atmospheric correction results, and the validation results indicate that the emissivity uncertainties are better than 1%. The multitemporal LSE data reveal that there is an increase in the emissivity with increasing SM. A logarithmic linear relationship was established to describe the broadband emissivity dependence with SM over each site, with determination coefficients of 0.9429, 0.7705, and 0.4603. The modeled values calculated using coefficients derived in previous studies for samples with similar compositions yielded good agreements with ASTER broadband emissivities over two sites. The empirical model also shows that the diurnal variation in emissivity, particularly over one site, is so significant that it should not be neglected.