The session will focus on ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) Mission, which will be launched between April and July 2009. The SMOS mission will provide two key variables in the water cycle - soil moisture and ocean salinity – both being important in climate research to improve climate change predictions. A major undertaking in any environmental science related satellite mission are the calibration and validation activities. They are an important prerequisite to the performance verification, demonstrating that the instrument meets its requirements, but they are also important for the validation of geophysical parameters, such as soil moisture and sea surface salinity.

Primarily we invite contributions on SMOS related calibration and validation activities. This will encompass, if not exclusively, the calibration of MIRAS, the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis instrument on-board SMOS, results from in-situ and airborne campaigns, including the development and data processing of relevant instruments such as ELBARA, EMIRAD, HUT2D and others, results from the rehearsal campaign in spring 2008, retrieval algorithm development and activities under ESA’s Announcement of Opportunity for SMOS calibration and validation in general. We also welcome contributions focussing on assimilating SMOS data into predictive models and developing new products based on SMOS data.