Disaggregation of SMAP L3 Brightness Temperatures to 9km using Kernel Machines

Abstract

In this study, a machine learning algorithm is used for disaggregation of SMAP brightness temperatures (T$_{\textrm{B}}$) from 36km to 9km. It uses image segmentation to cluster the study region based on meteorological and land cover similarity, followed by a support vector machine based regression that computes the value of the disaggregated T$_{\textrm{B}}$ at all pixels. High resolution remote sensing products such as land surface temperature, normalized difference vegetation index, enhanced vegetation index, precipitation, soil texture, and land-cover were used for disaggregation. The algorithm was implemented in Iowa, United States, from April to July 2015, and compared with the SMAP L3_SM_AP T$_{\textrm{B}}$ product at 9km. It was found that the disaggregated T$_{\textrm{B}}$ were very similar to the SMAP-T$_{\textrm{B}}$ product, even for vegetated areas with a mean difference $\leq$ 5K. However, the standard deviation of the disaggregation was lower by 7K than that of the AP product. The probability density functions of the disaggregated T$_{\textrm{B}}$ were similar to the SMAP-T$_{\textrm{B}}$. The results indicate that this algorithm may be used for disaggregating T$_{\textrm{B}}$ using complex non-linear correlations on a grid.