Citation for final published version: Uebbing, B., Forootan, Ehsan, Braakmann-Folgmann, A. and Kusche, J. 2017. Inverting surface soil moisture information from satellite altimetry over arid and semi-arid regions. Remote Sensing of Environment 196 , pp. Abstract 6 Monitoring surface soil moisture (SSM) variability is essential for understanding hydro-7 logical processes, vegetation growth, and interactions between land and atmosphere. Due 8 to sparse distribution of in-situ soil moisture

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... s, over the last two decades, several 9 active and passive radar satellite missions have been launched to provide information that 10 can be used to estimate surface conditions and subsequently soil moisture content of the 11 upper few cm soil layers. Some recent studies reported the potential of satellite altimeter 12 backscatter to estimate SSM, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. They also pointed 13 out some difficulties of such technique including: (i) the noisy behavior of the backscatter 14 estimations mainly caused by surface water in the radar foot-print, (ii) the assumptions 15 for converting altimetry backscatter to SSM, and (iii) the need for interpolating between 16 the tracks.