Department of Earth Science, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
Research Article
Can the Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) Satellite Track Soil Moisture at the Macro-Climate Scale Across the Western United States?
Author(s): Marisol Zepeda, Amanda Croteau and Christopher Potter*
The ECOSTRESS satellite uses thermal infrared wavelengths to measure the temperature of the land surface and
to calculate an Evaporative Stress Index (ESI). NASA’s ECOSTRESS mission was designed to support climate
change research, since ESI can be an important indicator of the drought stress in terrestrial plant communities. We
evaluated this satellite ESI for its capability to track changes in soil moisture measured at Unites States Department
of Agriculture (USDA) stations in the western states. Soil water datasets from 2019 and 2020 from thirty stations in
California, seven stations in Utah, three stations in Nevada, and two stations in Idaho were used for comparison of
all daily average ESI images from ECOSTRESS. We also evaluated the ESI by comparing it to the reference potential
Evapotranspiration (ETo) at the stations operated by CIMIS (California Irr.. View more»