BackForward Variable: Soil moisture at surface

Definition
Full name Soil moisture at surface
Definition Fractional content of water in a volume of wet soil. Surface layer (upper few centimetres)
Measuring Units m3 /m3 Uncertainty Units m3 /m3
Horizontal Res Units km Vertical Res Units
Stability Units m^3 /m^3 (Stability /decade)

 

Comment:
Last modified: 2025-08-11
Applied in OSCAR/Space Gap Analysis: Yes
Classification
  • Domain: Terrestrial
    • Sub-domain: Land surface
      • Variable: Soil moisture at surface
        • Measured in Layers:
          • Land surface
  • Cross-cutting themes:

Requirements defined for Soil moisture at surface  (8)

This tables shows all related requirements. For more operations/filtering, please consult the full list of Requirements
Note: In reading the values, goal is marked blue, breakthrough green, threshold orange
Application-dependent Technical Priority (ATP) Magenta and Relative priority of the attributes Red

Id Variable Layer App Area ATP Uncertainty Layer/s Quality Coverage Quality Stability / decade Hor Res Ver Res Obs Cyc Timeliness Coverage Conf Level Val Date Source General Comment Application Area Comment Horizontal Coverage Comment Observation Comment Performance Comment
49 Soil moisture at surface Land surface 2.9 Agricultural Meteorology 0.01 m3 /m3
0.017 m3 /m3
0.05 m3 /m3 		0.1 km
0.215 km
1 km 		24 h
46 h
7 d 		24 h
41 h
5 d 		Global land reasonable 2003-10-20 ET ODRRGOS Crop state and productivity estimation
222 Soil moisture at surface Land surface GEWEX (deprecated) 0.01 m3 /m3
0.02 m3 /m3
0.05 m3 /m3 		15 km
50 km
250 km 		24 h
3 d
10 d 		10 d
15 d
30 d 		Global land tentative 1998-10-29 WCRP
301 Soil moisture at surface Land surface 2.1 Global Numerical Weather Prediction and Real-time Monitoring 0.02 m3 /m3
0.04 m3 /m3
0.08 m3 /m3 		5 km
15 km
100 km 		3 h
24 h
5 d 		3 h
24 h
5 d 		Global land reasonable 2013-01-22 Erik Andersson
377 Soil moisture at surface Land surface 2.2 High-Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction 0.02 m3 /m3
0.04 m3 /m3
0.08 m3 /m3 		1 km
5 km
40 km 		60 min
3 h
6 h 		30 min
60 min
6 h 		Global land reasonable 2011-07-29 JF Mahfouf
447 Soil moisture at surface Land surface 2.3 Nowcasting / Very Short-Range Forecasting 0.01 m3 /m3
0.02 m3 /m3
0.05 m3 /m3 		5 km
10 km
50 km 		60 min
6 h
24 h 		60 min
6 h
24 h 		Global land reasonable 2013-04-03 P. Ambrosetti for forest fire indices calculation
678 Soil moisture at surface Land surface Climate-TOPC (deprecated) 0.005 m3 /m3
0.007 m3 /m3
0.01 m3 /m3 		50 km
60 km
100 km 		7 d
11 d
30 d 		360 d
1 y
2 y 		Global land speculative 2007-07-19 TOPC
759 Soil moisture at surface 2.4 Sub-Seasonal to Longer Predictions 0.01 m3 /m3
0.02 m3 /m3
0.05 m3 /m3 		50 km
100 km
500 km 		24 h
2 d
7 d 		24 h
2 d
7 d 		Global land reasonable 2009-01-19 Laura Ferranti
823 Soil moisture at surface Land surface 2.5 Atmospheric Climate Monitoring 0.5 0.04 m3 /m3 1 km
25 km 		24 h Global reasonable 2025-08-08 GCOS-200: The Global Observing System for Climate: Implementation Needs (Published 2016) Requirements in the GCOS-200 IP, Annex A, are only specified at the goal level. Requirements for stability in the GCOS IP are specified in different units than in OSCAR/requirement. 8 Aug 2025: PoC of AA 4.2 requested to archive these requirements under 2.5, because this GCOSTOPC variable will be moved under AA .4.2. The change was supported by PoC and the owner of AA 2.5.