ABSTRACT
Earth observation (EO) data, especially the remotely sensed data, are one of the important sources of spatial data. These data may come from remote sensing instruments deployed on orbital satellites, by aircraft, or just in ground-based stations. This chapter reviews remote sensing from satellites, the air, and on ground. The chapter covers remote sensing for the atmosphere, land, and ocean by starting with EO history and remote sensing applications for land cover or land use. Next, atmospheric remote sensing is discussed, emphasizing the meteorological satellite missions, NASA EOS missions with atmospheric components, including precipitation retrievals in detail. Then, land remote sensing through hyperspectral remote sensing, mainly from airborne platforms, is presented. After the discussion on land and atmospheric remote sensing, the oceanic remote sensing retrieval algorithms for two selected typical parameters, SST and ocean color ( chlorophyll-a), are examined. Finally, the ground-based sensors are reviewed with emphases on GeoSensor Networks (GSN) and SensorWeb.
