ESA’s soil moisture and ocean salinity (SMOS) mission was successfully launched in November 2009 and has since then delivered L-band brightness temperature observations under different viewing angles. SMOS derived surface soil moisture data have been produced for a period starting in mid January 2010. Since then the operational Level 2 soil moisture processor has been continuously improved and an increasing number of scientists has been analysing and using the data. This session will provide an overview on the latest status of the Level 2 soil moisture processor, the verification of the SMOS soil moisture product, applications related to hydrology and meteorology and data fusion. We especially encourage contributions addressing:

i. radiative transfer modelling over land surfaces, soil moisture and vegetation optical depth retrievals,
ii. verification of the SMOS soil moisture and vegetation optical depth products using in-situ measurements,
iii. the development of Level 3 soil moisture data products,
iv. cross comparisons between different soil moisture data sets derived from remote sensing or numerical models,
v. data assimilation of SMOS observations for the analysis of soil moisture and turbulent surface fluxes and
vi. data fusion and harmonisation techniques for the generation of long term soil moisture data sets.