dataset · Global

Soil moisture gridded data from 1978 to present

The C3S satellite soil moisture (SM) service provides a range of global soil moisture variables derived from numerous satellite sensors, including scatterometers and radiometers. The products are designed primarily for applications related to climate variability and change, land–atmosphere interactions, global biogeochemical cycles, ecology, hydrological and land surface modelling, drought monitoring, and meteorology. All C3S SM data are based on algorithms and scientific methods developed withi

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Source details

Licence: CC-BY-4.0

Evidence quality: 50.1

Listed in cds public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).

Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z

What's in it

Data offered docs-verified: Surface soil moisture (volumetric and saturation, 2–5 cm layer) · Root-zone soil moisture at 0–10, 10–40, 40–100 and 0–100 cm · Root-zone soil moisture uncertainty · Freeze/thaw classification (frozen = 1, not frozen = 0)
Coverage docs-verified: Global · 11/1978 - present (COMBINED and PASSIVE soil moisture, freeze/thaw); 01/1980 - present (root-zone); 08/1991 - present (ACTIVE)
Resolution docs-verified: 0.25° x 0.25° regular lat-lon grid; temporal: daily, 10-daily and monthly for soil moisture and root-zone products, daily for freeze/thaw
Update frequency docs-verified: ICDR (near-real-time): 10-day cycle with 10-day latency; CDR: annual updates
Formats docs-verified: NetCDF-4 (CF-1.8 metadata convention)
Access docs-verified: Open data under CC-BY licence (CC-BY-4.0 per entry metadata). Copernicus CDS site shows Login/Register; no API key or auth requirement is stated in the entry.

Useful for

Use cases llm-inferred: Long-term soil moisture and drought context for catchment or site water-balance and infiltration assessments · Root-zone moisture (0–1 m) inputs for land-atmosphere or recharge screening in climate-change risk assessments · Freeze/thaw screening of winter ground conditions for civils and geotechnical risk notes
Audience llm-inferred: hydrologists · environmental consultants · flood and drainage consultants · geotechnical engineers · GIS analysts · climate and ecology specialists

Limitations

Constraints docs-verified: Temporal gaps expected from missing satellite overpasses · Spatial gaps expected from missing satellite overpasses · ICDR data has a 10-day latency · RZSM data from 2025-11-11 onwards is a reprocessed version (v202505.1); see Known Issues in docs · Coarse 0.25° grid, not suitable for site-scale analysis · Global dataset; UK-specific coverage is not described in the docs

Evidence

Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.