Ancillary datasets were used in the production of the "Active", "Passive" and "Combined" soil moisture data products, created as part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Soil Moisture Climate Change Initiative (CCI) project. The set of ancillary datasets include datasets of Average Vegetation Optical Depth data from AMSR-E, Soil Porosity, Topographic Complexity and Wetland fraction, as well as a Land Mask. This version of the ancillary datasets were used in the production of the v02.1 Soil Moisture CCI data. For further information on these and the references associated with them please see the Product Specification Document (PSD), a link to which is provided in linked documentation. The "Active" "Passive" and "Combined" soil moisture products which they were used in the development of are fusions of scatterometer and radiometer soil moisture products, derived from the AMI-WS, ASCAT, SMMR, SSM/I, TMI, AMSR-E, WindSat, and AMSR2 instruments. To access these products or for further details on them please see their dataset records. Additional reference documents and information relating to them can also be found on the CCI Soil Moisture project website or within the Product Specification Document.

The Combined Soil Moisture CCI dataset is one of the three datasets created as part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Soil Moisture Essential Climate Variable (ECV) CCI project. The product has been created by merging the "Active" and "Passive" datasets which were created for the project, these both being fusions of scatterometer and radiometer soil moisture products derived from the AMI-WS, ASCAT, SMMR, SSM/I, TMI, AMSR-E, WindSat, and AMSR2 satellite instruments. The v02.1 product, provided as global daily images in NetCDF-4 classic file format, presents a global coverage of surface soil moisture at a spatial resolution of 0.25 degrees. It is provided in volumetric units [m3 m-3] and covers the period (yyyy-mm-dd) 1978-11-01 to 2013-12-31. For information regarding the theoretical and algorithmic base of the product, please see the Algorithm Theoretical Baseline Document version 2.0 or the paper by Wagner 2012, both available in the documentation section. An overview of all known errors associated with it is provided in the Comprehensive Error Characterization Report. Other additional reference documents and information relating to the dataset can also be found on the CCI Soil Moisture project web site or within the Product Specification Document. The data set should be cited using all three following references: 1. Liu, Y. Y., W. A. Dorigo, et al. (2012). "Trend-preserving blending of passive and active microwave soil moisture retrievals." Remote Sensing of Environment 123: 280-297. 2. Liu, Y. Y., Parinussa, R. M., Dorigo, W. A., De Jeu, R. A. M., Wagner, W., van Dijk, A. I. J. M., McCabe, M. F., Evans, J. P. (2011). Developing an improved soil moisture dataset by blending passive and active microwave satellite-based retrievals. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 15, 425-436 3. Wagner, W., W. Dorigo, R. de Jeu, D. Fernandez, J. Benveniste, E. Haas, M. Ertl (2012). Fusion of active and passive microwave observations to create an Essential Climate Variable data record on soil moisture. ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (ISPRS Annals), Volume I-7, XXII ISPRS Congress, Melbourne, Australia, 25 August-1 September 2012, 315-321