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 second phase of 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. New soil moisture climate data records are released annually, featuring algorithmic improvements and data set extensions with each new product version. The next planned evolution 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 operational data archive, opens an external URL in a new window (for the official ACTIVE, PASSIVE, and COMBINED products) or the research data archive, opens an external URL in a new window (for research data sets such as gapfilled, model-free, or root-zone soil moisture products).