The CoSMOS L-band experiment in Southeast Australia

The CoSMOS (Campaign for validating the Operation of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission) campaign was conducted during November of 2005 in the Goulburn River Catchment, in SE Australia. The main objective of CoSMOS was to obtain a series of L-band measurements from the air in order to validate the L-band emission model that will be used by the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) ground segment processor. In addition, the campaign was designed to investigate open questions including the Sun-glint effect over land, the application of polarimetric measurements over land, and to clarify the importance of dew and interception for soil moisture retrievals. This paper summarises the campaign activities, and presents progress on the analysis of the CoSMOS data set.