2-10: Satellite Observations of the Earth/Atmosphere/Ocean/Biosphere

Pre-Class Preparation

Objectives

To understand the general characteristics of earth-orbiting satellites and their measurement characteristics.
To be able to describe the measurements made by environmental satellites and how these basic measurements can be used to assess and monitor the state of the earth's environment.

Procedure

Read the learning unit.
Class images
Take the learning unit quiz. Quizzes are available from your portfolio. You may access your portfolio via the list of students participating in this years course, as represented by the icon below.

Additional Required Reading. Although you are not ultimately responsible for content listed in this section, we encourage you to fully explore the links in order to provide a better scope on the upcoming class discussion.

	Introduction to Remote Sensing: Historical and Technical Perspectives (From the Applied Information Sciences Branch NASA)
	Eddy, John A., ed, 1997: Consequences: The Nature & Implications of Environmental Change (3)2. (From GCRIO.)
	Earth Observing Spacecraft and Instruments (From the Mission to Planet Earth NASA)

Class Discussion

Problem to ponder...
Why do all T.V. satellite dishes in the US point south? If you lived in China, Ecuador, or South Africa, which way would they point?
Class Discussion Summary: by classmate Renato da Silva

We saw in class that satellite motions are governed by the balance between the force of gravity and the centrifugal force. Also, there are two types of sattelites. The first type, geostationary, which have a period of rotation that matches the rotational period of the earth, are placed near the equator, at a position about 36,000 km above the earth's surface and can provide an entire view of the earth surface. (e.g. GOES, METEOSAT, GMS, etc). Since they are posted near the equator, receiving dishes may be fixed and directioned to the south in northern hemisphere and to the north in the southern hemisphere. Some weather-related products derived from the geostationary include: precipitation estimates, wind derived from cloud motion, sea-surface temperature, vertical profile of moisture, snow cover, and cloud-top height. The second type, polar orbiting satellites, are placed at an altitude of 850 km, and have the ability to capture fine detailed resolution of the planet surface (e.g. LANDSAT, NOAA, etc). Some products derived from the polar satellites include: cloud delineation, snow and ice monitoring, location of water bodies, vegetation, forest fire monitoring, volcanic activity, sea surface temperature, and soil moisture. The Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) is a program from NASA that involves a variety of satellites, it includes: The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS), the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite(UARS), and the TOPEX/Poseidon satellites.

Post-Class Activities

Participate in the electronic dialog. Use this forum for:

continuing class discussion;
posing new questions to students or the instructor;
responding to issues/questions raised by students in class/electronic dialog.

Visitor Access (Visitors are welcome to participate in the dialog. Just click on the icon below)	Student Access (Students must post all dialog from their portfolio. Click on the icon below to access the student list.)

Recommended Reading Materials

	A picture gallery of multichannel radar images. NASA.
	Correction to satellite based temperature record changes cooling trend to a warming trend.
	Global Temperature Anomalies. (From John Christy and the 1997 Unidata/COMET Workshop.)
	Global Temperatures from Space and the Surface: Why the Discrepancy?
	Global Warming: Not whether it is happening but what to do about it.
	The Remote Sensing Tutorial
	Satellite Instrumentation and Applications. (From Steve Akerman and the 1997 Unidata/COMET Workshop.)
	Seawifsdaily coverage MPEG. (902K)
	Simulated flight around the Galapagos Islands (SIR-C data) (1.055M). NASA.
	The Water Planet- Meteorological, Oceanographic and Hydrologic Applications of Remote Sensing (From the Applied Information Sciences Branch NASA)
	Weather & global monitoring from the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology, Australia.
	Houghton, J. T., L. G. Meira Filho, B. A. Callander N. Harris, A. Kattenberg, and K. Maskell, 1996: Climate Change 1995. The Science of Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 435-438.
	Global Temperature Anomolies: 1979 - Current (From UNIDATA.)

References

	Collecting Data at the Surface- Ground Truth (From the Applied Information Sciences Branch, NASA)
	First Inernational Conference on Geospatial Information in Agriculture and Forestry
	Glossary of Remote Sensing
	Jim Purdom: Satellite Meteorology. (From the 1997 Unidata/COMET Workshop.)
	LANDSAT program.
	NOAA Homepage.
	Radar and Microwave Remote Sensing (From the Applied Information Sciences Branch, NASA)
	Satellite Altimetry data from TOPEX/POSEIDON processed by the NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry traces the evolution and continuation of the 1997 El Nino event
	Satellite presentations and related information. (From the 1997 Unidata/COMET Workshop.)
	Sea Surface Temperature from 1981 to Present
	The use of satellite remote sensing.
	Baker, Wayman E, George D. Emmitt, Franklin Robertson, Robert M. Atlas, John E. Molinari, David A. Bowdle, Jan Paegle, R. Michael Hardesty, Robert T. Menzies, T. N. Krishnamurti, Robert A. Brown, Madison J. Post, John R. Anderson, Andrew C. Lorenc, and James McElroy, 1995: Lidar-Measured Winds From Space: A Key Component for Weather and Climate Prediction. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 76(6), 869-888.
	Gershon, N. D., and C. G. Miller, 1993: Dealing With the Data Deluge. IEEE Spectrum, July, 28-32.
	Le Provost, C. , A. F. Bennett, and D. E. Cartwright, 1995: Ocean Tides for and from TOPEX/POSEIDON. Science, 267, 639-642.
	Zorpette, Clenn, 1993: Sensing Climate Change. IEEE Spectrum, July, 20-27.