Enhancing confidence in satellite observations of terrestrial properties like land surface temperature and soil moisture requires advances in validation and data quality assessment practices.
remote sensing
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Plants Reveal the History of Earth’s Largest Tropical Ice Cap
Rooted plants buried by advancing outlet glaciers illustrate rapid changes in the extent of Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru during the Holocene.
Posted inScience Updates
Ecosystem Observations from Every Angle
Proximal remote sensing provides a bridge between ecosystem flux data at Earth’s surface and optical data from satellite sensors, improving our grasp of feedbacks between terrestrial ecosystems and climate.
Posted inNews
Satellites Map Environmental Vulnerabilities in U.S. Prisons
Geoscientists are using remote sensing to gather data on risks including increased exposure to air and soil pollution, excessive heat, wildfire, and flooding.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Humans Have Boosted Atmospheric Mercury Concentrations Sevenfold
A new baseline of volcanic contributions to the global mercury cycle reveals how drastically human activities have increased the element’s concentration in the atmosphere.
Posted inNews
Rainfall from Tropical Storms Might Be on the Downswing
Two decades’ worth of satellite data suggest that the rainfall rates of tropical cyclones might be decreasing relative to background levels.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Observing the Impact of Convective Aggregation on Water Vapor
Remote sensing measurements for water vapor isotopic composition enable us to assess how convective aggregation influences the atmospheric hydrological cycle.
Posted inNews
Temperature Extremes Hit Lower- and Middle-Income Countries Hardest
Smaller cities in these regions are less likely to have infrastructure to deal with extreme climates.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Wet Conditions Delay Wildfire Detection
When accompanied by a considerable amount of rainfall, ignition of wildfire by lightning over forested land may not be detected until days later.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Landfast Sea Ice: The Most Important Ice You’ve Never Heard Of
Landfast sea ice, sea ice that is held stationary against the Antarctic continent, links firmly with many key climate processes, but its importance is only being fully realized as its extent dwindles.