Category Archives: Remote sensing

Characteristics of cumulus population and microphysical properties observed over Southeast Atlantic

By Yann Blanchard Figure 1. Cumulus in the vicinity of Ascension Island, in a 100 x 100km image (which is close to global climate model spatial resolution) from MODIS onboard AQUA (22 July 2016) Shallow cumulus cover large areas in … Continue reading

Posted in Aerosols, Atlantic, Atmospheric chemistry, Climate modelling, earth observation, Numerical modelling, Oceans, Remote sensing, Solar radiation, University of Reading | Leave a comment

What’s the secret of coarse dust?

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

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Hidden in the clouds

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

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Soil Moisture retrieval from satellite SAR imagery

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

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Observation uncertainty in data assimilation

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

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Lakes from space

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

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How TAMSAT have been supporting African people for over 35 years

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

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

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

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The value of future observations

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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