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Take Two

JPL soil moisture satellite to shed light on drought

By Take Two Staff
Published Mar 3, 2015
NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission will produce high-resolution global maps of soil moisture to measure weather and climate forecasting, flooding prediction, drought monitoring, crop yields and agricultural forecasting.
NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission will produce high-resolution global maps of soil moisture to measure weather and climate forecasting, flooding prediction, drought monitoring, crop yields and agricultural forecasting.
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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
)

Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.

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JPL soil moisture satellite to shed light on drought

On January 31, the Jet Propulsion Lab launched a research satellite called SMAP, Soil Moisture Active Passive, to help us better understand and predict the patterns of drought here in the West.  

For the first time, scientists will be able to map soil moisture at high spatial resolution every 2-3 days globally. This map will unlock the mystery of processes not understood before such as how evaporation impacts weather and how soil moisture impacts resources we have for agriculture and human use. 

For an update on the satellite's progress, we speak with Dr. Eni Njoku, a member of the SMAP Project Science team at JPL.