This paper reports on the comparison of surface temperature and soil moisture observed by instruments onboard the Environmental Satellite (EnviSat) with simulations by an atmospheric circulation model over the period April 2005 to September 2007. The Naquriver basin has been selected as the study area, which is located on the eastern part of Tibetan Plateau. For the selected period, the PSU/NCAR meso scale model (referred to as MM5) has been employed in a coupled mode with NOAH LSm to simulate the soil moisture and surface temperature. Surface temperature and soil moisture have been retrieved from Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) and Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) observations, respectively. Comparison of the simulated and satellite observed soil moisture and surface temperature showed that uncertainties in the simulated surface temperature and soil moisture are overall in agreement with each other, but are relatively large during spring and at the end of the Monsoon period.
Van der Velde, R. et al. (2008): On the Usage of Satellite Observations for Drought Monitoring and Forecasting. Proc. Dragon 1 Programme Final Results 2004–2007, Beijing, P.R. China 21– 25 April 2008.
