“Tau-Omega”- and Two-Stream Emission Models Used for Passive L-Band Retrievals: Application to Close-Range Measurements over a Forest

Microwave Emission Models (EM) are used in retrieval algorithms to estimate geophysical state parameters such as soil Water Content ( W C ) and vegetation optical depth ( τ ), from brightness temperatures T B p , θ measured at nadir angles θ at Horizontal and Vertical polarizations p = { H , V } . An EM adequate for implementation in a retrieval algorithm must capture the responses of T B p , θ to the retrieval parameters, and the EM parameters must be experimentally accessible and representative of the measurement footprint. The objective of this study is to explore the benefits of the multiple-scattering Two-Stream (2S) EM over the “Tau-Omega” (TO) EM considered as the “reference” to retrieve W C and τ from L-band T B p , θ . For sparse and low-scattering vegetation T B , E M p , θ simulated with E M = { TO , 2 S } converge. This is not the case for dense and strongly scattering vegetation. Two-Parameter (2P) retrievals 2 P R C = ( W C R C , τ R C ) are computed from elevation scans T B p , θ j = T B , TO p , θ j synthesized with TO EM and from T B p , θ j measured from a tower within a deciduous forest. Retrieval Configurations ( R C ) employ either E M = TO or E M = 2 S and assume fixed scattering albedos. W C R C achieved with the 2S RC is marginally lower ( ~ 1 m 3 m − 3 ) than if achieved with the “reference” TO RC, while τ R C is reduced considerably when using 2S EM instead of TO EM. Our study outlines a number of advantages of the 2S EM over the TO EM currently implemented in the operational SMOS and SMAP retrieval algorithms.