ESA CCI Soil Moisture (COMBINED v09.1) — Global Bimonthly Mean Climatology (2018–2023)

ESA CCI Soil Moisture (COMBINED v09.1) — Global Bimonthly Mean Climatology (2018–2023) This dataset provides six global bimonthly mean soil moisture climatologies derived from the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (ESA CCI) Soil Moisture COMBINED product version 09.1. Daily Level-3S COMBINED NetCDF files from 2018 to 2023 were averaged to produce bimonthly means representing January–February, March–April, May–June, July–August, September–October, and November–December. The product represents volumetric soil moisture (m³ m⁻³) in the top soil layer. The COMBINED product integrates multiple active and passive microwave soil moisture retrievals from several satellite sensors (e.g., ASCAT, SMOS, AMSR-E, AMSR2, SSM/I, TMI) into a harmonized global time series. It provides improved temporal coverage and consistency relative to single-sensor datasets by merging observations through a triple-collocation-based scaling and harmonization framework. Version 09.1 includes enhanced inter-sensor calibration and updated uncertainty estimates. All rasters have a global extent and a spatial resolution of 0.25° (~27 km) in WGS84 geographic coordinates (EPSG:4326). Each file represents the multi-year mean for its corresponding bimonthly period across 2018–2023. Daily “sm” variables were read and averaged using the R terra package (v1.8), with output compressed in GeoTIFF format. Variable: Volumetric soil moisture (m³ m⁻³)Temporal coverage: 2018–2023Spatial resolution: 0.25° (~27 km)Coordinate reference system: EPSG:4326 (WGS84)Data source: ESA CCI Soil Moisture COMBINED v09.1 (catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/ba51d32a03f6474a8f9a0a8c0a2f42cf) Files included:ESA_SoilMoisture_01.tif — Jan–Feb mean soil moisture (2018–2023)ESA_SoilMoisture_02.tif — Mar–Apr mean soil moisture (2018–2023)ESA_SoilMoisture_03.tif — May–Jun mean soil moisture (2018–2023)ESA_SoilMoisture_04.tif — Jul–Aug mean soil moisture (2018–2023)ESA_SoilMoisture_05.tif — Sep–Oct mean soil moisture (2018–2023)ESA_SoilMoisture_06.tif — Nov–Dec mean soil moisture (2018–2023