You should note that SMAP products are in HDF5 (or .h5) format which are accessible through HDFView to learn data structure and their content. SMAP data (h5 files) could also be read in MATLAB where you can plot and work with the data. Here is a sample MATLAB code that I use for reading SMAP soil moisture data:

SMAP_data_dir = 'D:\research\SMAP_ET\SMAP_data\';

fname = [SMAP_data_dir,'SMAP_L3_SM_P_20150506_R13080_001.h5'];

a = h5info(fname);

% 2 "Groups"

a.Groups(1) % Metadata

a.Groups(2) % /Soil_Moisture_Retrieval_Data

a.Groups(2).Datasets

a.Groups(2).Datasets.Name % Found the one I wanted... soil_moisture

SMAP_mois = h5read(fname,'/Soil_Moisture_Retrieval_Data/soil_moisture');

SMAP_mois(SMAP_mois

Thanks Ehsan!! Your answer helped a lot. I will try to use it.

Hi Roberto! I am working in the group of Prof. Dara Entekhabi, the science leader of the SMAP satellite mission. We are extensively working on SMAP products, and I may be of some help if you could specify the help you need. Best, Erfan

Thanks Erfan!! 

I very grateful for your answer.

I want to get more experience in this product. How to use it and to process it. I tried to use it in QGIS, but the program didn't work (a lot of error) for SMAP.

I want to work with the surface moisture (product). Which software or

solution can you recommend to me?

You should note that SMAP products are in HDF5 (or .h5) format which are accessible through HDFView to learn data structure and their content. SMAP data (h5 files) could also be read in MATLAB where you can plot and work with the data. Here is a sample MATLAB code that I use for reading SMAP soil moisture data:

SMAP_data_dir = 'D:\research\SMAP_ET\SMAP_data\';

fname = [SMAP_data_dir,'SMAP_L3_SM_P_20150506_R13080_001.h5'];

a = h5info(fname);

% 2 "Groups"

a.Groups(1) % Metadata

a.Groups(2) % /Soil_Moisture_Retrieval_Data

a.Groups(2).Datasets

a.Groups(2).Datasets.Name % Found the one I wanted... soil_moisture

SMAP_mois = h5read(fname,'/Soil_Moisture_Retrieval_Data/soil_moisture');

SMAP_mois(SMAP_mois

As Erfan mentioned the data is provided in *.h5 format. In  ArcGIS 10 or above, you should also be able to add the data into ArcMap directly using the Add Data button, the format is supported (see link 1).

You can Also reformat the data in Nasa EARTH DATA website (see link 2) to GeoTIFF (that is more software friendly) or any other format that you want.

I attached an instruction on how to do it.

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//009t0000000q000000

https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/

you can read this in r also by using just using this commands.

library(ncdf)

myfile

SMAP

SMAP information can be found in the SMAP Handbook and other SMAP documents (Pls refer to the attached jpeg file).

SMAP Data

SMAP radar failed after ~ 2 months of operation. Since then, the expected SMAP Active-Passive 9 km product is not available. However, SMAP radiometric data are available up todate. NASA released SMAP enhanced 9 km products (https://nsidc.org/the-drift/data-update/new-and-updated-nasa-smap-radiometer-products-now-available/) and recently the beta version of “SMAP/Sentinel-1 L2 Radiometer/Radar 30-Second Scene 3 km EASE-Grid Soil Moisture” is released (http://nsidc.org/data/SPL2SMAP_S/versions/1).

The data can be downloaded from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) (http://nsidc.org/).

Following options are available for the bulk download of data (https://nsidc.org/support/faq/what-options-are-available-bulk-downloading-data-https-earthdata-login-enabled).

I used Tab Save extension in Google Chrome for batch downloading. First you should generate a txt file with all the download links from http://nsidc.org/data/smap. Then, you can download the data by simply copying and pasting all the links into Tab Save extension.

SMAP data processing

SMAP data comes in hdf format. The data can be viewed in "HDFview" (Pls refer to the attached pdf file). Matlab or Python scripts are often used for SMAP data processing.

However, if you are using a GIS software for data processing, ArcGIS 10.x would be a good option. The following MODIS hdf data processing video will give you some insights;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZngVMnUJHI

To work with multiple files, you may employ an ArcGIS model (iterate raster).

You may also refer to this page for some useful scripts;

http://hdfeos.org/zoo/index_openNSIDC_Examples.php#SMAP

Hope this will help.

Regards!

Indishe

How we can pre-process SMAP data?