This data series represents the volumetric soil moisture (percent saturated soil) for the surface layer, expressed as a difference from the long term average. The average is calculated from all available years for each location and each time period, based on the length of the satellite data record. Values higher than zero represent areas that are wetter than the long term average, and areas lower than zero represent areas drier than the long term average. The data is created daily and is averaged for the ISO standard week and month. The data is produced from passive microwave satellite data collected by the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite and converted to soil moisture using version 6.20 of the SMOS soil moisture processor. The data are produced by the European Space Agency and obtained under a Category 1 proposal for Level 2 soil moisture data. The data are gridded to a resolution of 0.25 degrees. Data quality flags have been applied to remove areas where rainfall is present during the acquisition, where snow cover is detected and when Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is above an acceptable threshold. For more information, visit: http://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/81af24f4-76cb-4f33-8685-b3a6a576358d