Satellite Sees Soils As They Freeze Over

Officials with the European Space Agency (ESA) say that the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is capable of using its advanced remote-sensing technology to keep track of how soils freeze over as winter sets in.

This year is not a particularly good one for such investigations, primarily due to the extreme warmth and dryness that affected most of Europe, but especially its central, eastern and southeastern parts.

However, the image above clearly shows how freezing is progressing through a patch of soil, which is incidentally located in northern Finland. The advancing frost is captured in images of “brightness temperature,” the ESA experts say.

The reason why freezing soils are important for SMOS is that the mission is tasked with keeping track of the planet's carbon cycle – including CO2 and methane. When they freeze, soils capture large amounts of such chemicals, removing them from the atmosphere.