Category Archives: Remote sensing

What’s the secret of coarse dust?

Posted on June 18, 2018 by hjia

By Claire Ryder Mineral dust aerosol particles are regularly lifted into the atmosphere in arid regions, such as deserts, and transported over thousands of kilometres by the wind, such as from the Sahara desert to the Caribbean Sea, as shown … Continue reading →

Posted in Aerosols, Africa, Atmospheric chemistry, Climate modelling, earth observation, Remote sensing | Leave a comment

Hidden in the clouds

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Stephen Burt

By Nicolas Bellouin Our atmosphere contains varying amounts of tiny liquid or solid particles called aerosols. Some aerosols have a natural origin, like the mineral dust particles that form sandstorms, or the sea spray emitted by breaking waves. Other aerosols … Continue reading →

Posted in Aerosols, Atmospheric chemistry, earth observation, Remote sensing | Leave a comment

Soil Moisture retrieval from satellite SAR imagery

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Stephen Burt

By Keith Morrison Soil moisture retrieval from satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery uses the knowledge that the signal reflected from a soil is related to its dielectric properties. For a given soil type, variations in dielectric are controlled solely … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, earth observation, Hydrology, land use, Measurements and instrumentation, Numerical modelling, Remote sensing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Observation uncertainty in data assimilation

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Stephen Burt

By Sarah Dance Approximately 4 million properties in the UK are at risk from surface-water flooding which occurs when heavy rainfall overwhelms the drainage capacity of the local area. Several national weather centres have been developing new numerical forecasting systems … Continue reading →

Posted in data assimilation, earth observation, Numerical modelling, Remote sensing, Weather, Weather forecasting | Leave a comment

Sea Surface Temperature Climate Data Record

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Stephen Burt

By Owen Embury Over 70% of the Earth’s surface is ocean and knowing its temperature is important for understanding both weather and climate. Historically sea surface temperature (SST) has been measured in situ – from ships and more recently from … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, earth observation, Historical climatology, Measurements and instrumentation, Metadata, Remote sensing | Leave a comment

Lakes from space

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Laura Carrea For the first time satellite technology has been used to make a census of global inland water cover. A number of 117 million lakes, reservoirs and wetlands of area >0.002 km2 have been found summing up to a … Continue reading →

Posted in earth observation, Hydrology, land use, Remote sensing | Tagged | Leave a comment

How TAMSAT have been supporting African people for over 35 years

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Ross Maidment The University of Reading’s TAMSAT group ( www.tamsat.org.uk ) have helped pioneer the use of satellite imagery in rainfall estimation across Africa since the early 1980s when the group was first established. Thanks to some bright and innovative minds … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Climate, drought, earth observation, Remote sensing | Leave a comment

From kilobytes to petabytes for global change research: take the skills survey!

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Vicky Lucas Institute for Environmental Analytics If you deal with megabytes of environmental sample data, or gigabytes of sensor data, or terabytes of model data or petabytes of remote sensing data, then I’d like you to take a survey.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, Numerical modelling, Remote sensing, Teaching & Learning | Tagged | Leave a comment

The value of future observations

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Alison Fowler The atmosphere and oceans are being routinely observed by a myriad of instruments. These instruments are positioned on board orbiting satellites, aircraft and ships, surface weather stations, and even balloons.  The information collected by these instruments can … Continue reading →

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The driving mechanism of large-scale unsteady currents in the ocean

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Antoine Hochet During the last twenty years, measurements of the ocean surface properties by satellite instruments have significantly increased our knowledge of ocean dynamics. One of these instruments is an altimeter that measures the topography of the ocean surface … Continue reading →

Posted in earth observation, Oceans, Remote sensing | Tagged | Leave a comment