Climate Data Records of soil moisture are fundamental for improving our understanding of long-term dynamics in the coupled water, energy, and carbon cycles over land. To respond to this need, the European Space Agency (ESA) has supported the development and production of the first multi-decadal, global satellite-observed soil moisture (SM) dataset as part of its Climate Change Initiative (CCI) program. This product, named ESA CCI SM, combines various single-sensor active and passive microwave soil moisture products into three harmonised Climate Data Records: a merged active microwave, a merged passive microwave, and a combined active+passive microwave product. The ESA CCI SM project is currently in the extension phase called CCI+.

The objective of CCI Soil Moisture is to produce the most complete and most consistent global soil moisture data record based on active and passive microwave sensors. The CCI+ phase has so far produced two major dataset releases: v05.2 and v06.1. The next planned evolution, v07, will focus on improving the uncertainty analysis associated with the product, incorporating day time observations and reducing the dependency of the product on modeled data.

To download the data, visit the website: ESA CCI SM website, opens an external URL in a new window.