The main difference between V5.51 and previous V5.00 is the change of the dielectric constant model used in the retrieval algorithm. Processor version V5.51 uses the Mironov formulation instead of the Dobson Model. This change improves the soil moisture estimates, increases the number of successful retrievals over dry and warm surfaces and reduces extreme values of soil moisture.The processor improvements and other associated information are summarised in the Level 2 SM read-me-first note.Soil Moisture data users are strongly encouraged to consult the above mentioned Level 2 SM read-me-first nExcept for very arid areas we do not expect drastic changes we will not reprocess the whole data just now.FEED BACK is most welcome as usualThe SMOS TEAM
As indicated earlier the New reprocessed SMOS data is available. It is the so called version 5
The different readme files are available on the ESA web site
ALL the LEVEL 1, 2SM and 2 OS have been reprocessed from January 2010 to the end of 2011 and the processor (operational) is also running with the very same version so from January 2010 to April 2012 all the data has been processed uniformly and is available from ESA
For soil moisture a new version of the Level 2 Soil Moisture processor (V5.51) has been deployed in the operational chain on 24 April 2012. The first data set generated with the new processor has the start acquisition time of 23 April 2012 08:35 UTC.