Abstract:
Ground-based microwave radiometric field observations were conducted by using the Ground Based
Passive Microwave Radiometer (GBMR) at frequencies of 6.9, 10.65 and 18.7 GHz to gain a better
understanding of the physical mechanism of the radiative transfer process taken place in dry soil media. A
metal plate was used as a bottom boundary and dry soil was put on it by increasing its depth one
centimeter by one centimeter. The observed brightness temperature increased as the dry soil depth
increased, while the increment of brightness temperature per one centimeter increase of soil depth was
getting smaller. This behavior demonstrated the existence of volume scattering effects in the dry soil.
Three models: surface emission model, Mie-scattering model and dense media radiative transfer model,
were applied to the experiment results. The dense media radiative transfer model shows the best
agreement with the observed data.
