Remote Sensing & IGARSS

A Look Back, A Look Ahead

Karen St.Germain

With Significant Contributions From:Paul Smits, David Kunkee, David Glackin, Steffan Fritz,

Chris Roelfsema, Stuart Phinn & Liam Gumley

July 2010

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The Early Years – G-GE

• A small society called the Geoscience Electronics Group (G-GE) had formed and was busy broadening its scope• From 1961 to 1964 the society grew from its early emphasis on seismic activity• In 1964 established the first journal dedicated to natural phenomena and the

electronic instrumentation to measure them• “Transactions on Geoscience Electronics”

• By November 1968, the society was poised again to expand its scope through a call to arms – lead article entitled “Oceanographic Instrumentation: A Crisis of National Neglect,” by Harvey D. Kushner

• Having established a presence in the fields of geophysics and oceanography, the society quickly moved into meteorology

• By 1969, the young society was ready to plan its first Symposium and the predecessor of IGARSS came into existence (held annually for 3 years)• 376 Attendees• 63 Papers• 13 Technical Sessions covering oceanographic and meteorological remote sensing,

seismology instrumentation, and environmental polution• The society expanded its scope one more time in 1973 to include data processing

techniques, pattern recognition, and physics of underlying phenomenlogy2

The Early Years: NIMBUS

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• At the same time, the NIMBUS program was developing new experimental techniques for weather observation• Nimbus 5 (December 1972) and Nimbus

6 (June 1975) launched two microwave instruments • Electrically Scanning Microwave

Radiometer (ESMR) for mapping the microwave radiation from the earth's surface and atmosphere (PI Dr. Thomas Wilheit)

• Microwave Spectrometer (NEMS) for measuring tropospheric temperature profiles, water vapor, cloud liquid water and surface temperature (PI Dr. David Staelin)

• Nimbus 7 (October 1978) launched the first Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) for sea surface temperature and near-surface (PI Dr. Per Gloerson)

Mid-1970s: Microwaves Get Traction!!!

• The success of the NIMBUS program and a few early Skylab experiments indicate that there is a way to get a global view of the oceans

• Everyone wants in on the action and a Users Working Group was established• The Navy (Office of the Oceanographer, Fleet Numerical, Navy Surface

Weapons, Naval Research Lab, Office of Naval Research, and the Navy/NOAA Joint Ice Center)

• NOAA (Atlantic Oceanic Marine Lab, Weather Center, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Marine Fisheries

• Defense Mapping Agency• US Geological Survey• The US Coast Guard• The Department of the Interior• Commercial Interests (shipping, fishing, mining, oil, and gas)

• Requirements were developed and SeaSat – a NASA/JPL demonstration mission, was born

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SeaSat – A Microwave Mission

• Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) – 6.6, 10.7, 18, 21, and 37 GHz• Ocean Wind Speed, Temperature• Atmospheric Water Vapor and Rain Rate• Polar Ice Cover• Ocean Topography and Wave Height

• Seasat-A Satellite Scatterometer (SASS) – 14.6 GHz• Ocean Wind Speed and Direction

• Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) – 1.275 GHz• Ocean Surface Imagery (wave patterns)• Sea Ice Imagery• Coastal Region and Land Imagery

• Radar Altimeter (ALT) – 13.5 GHz• Launch !!!!!

• June 26, 1978

5Seasat was to provide the first truly global view of the World Oceans

SeaSat – A Microwave Mission

• After a glorious 3 ½ months on orbit• Catastrophic failure of the electronic power

system• BUT Seasat provided a wealth of data

• SASS demonstrated the capabilities of a scatterometer to measure ocean winds

• ALT and its predecessors demonstrated the capability of spaceborne altimeters to observe the global marine geoid

• SAR demonstrated the unique potential to provide information about the health of the planet and its biodiversity

• SMMR demonstrated the ability of scanning microwave radiometers to provide a wealth of ocean surface, land surface, and atmosphere products

6In its short life, Seasat demonstrated that a global view was possible

Meanwhile back at the G-GE

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• In 1979, the Administrative Committee voted• Change the name of G-GE to the Geoscience and Remote

Sensing Society (GRSS)• Change the name of the journal to Transactions on

Geoscience and Remote Sensing• This change was driven by Fawwaz Ulaby, then a new member of

the AdCom, in recognition of the strong linkage between the various geoscientific disciplines and the powerful techniques of remote sensing

• Remote sensing was broadly defined to include space borne & airborne observations, as well as seismic recording devices and sonar ocean floor mappers

• In 1980, now GRSS President Fawwaz Ulaby proposed reinstating the annual symposium called IGARSS• Held in Washington DC, June 8-10, 1981 • Strong international participation• Sponsor sessions in all of the technical areas of interest to

the society• In an effort to drive the international participation, IGARSS’82 was

held in Munich, and the attendance held at 359

IGARSS in the 1980s

• In 1981, there were 2 full sessions dedicated to the SMMR on Nimbus-7 (launched October 1978, just as Seasat failed)

• Throughout the 80’s IGARSS was propelling the community toward the operational viability of the capabilities demonstrated by Seasat and its predecessors

• In 1985, the Navy launched Geosat – the follow-on to ALT• In 1987, the Air Force launched SSM/I – the follow-on to SMMR• In 1991, the European Space Agency launched ERS-1 – the follow-on to SASS• Between 1985 and 1995, no fewer than 7 Synthetic Aperature Radar missions were

launched – all following on the Seasat SAR • By the time Vince Salomonson welcomed attendees to IGARSS 1990, the society had a

full blown success on their hands• Grown to 10 parallel sessions over 4 days• Covering topics from instrumentation techniques, to atmospheric observations, to

early Global Change papers• Increasing focus on routine production of global data products, supporting both

operational and science missions

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The Second Decade of IGARSS ushers in new operational capabilities and the advent of continuous global data

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• In 1990, Remote Sensing was still largely a government led and funded activity• The 90s ushered in a broader focus within IGARSS• The emergence of Remote Sensing as a tool for National/International Policy –making• NASA once again pushed the state of the art with its Earth Observing System

1998: NASA Earth Observing System Launches Terra !

IGARSS 2000

• Plenary Session Speakers announced the critical role of remote sensing in enforcing the Kyoto Protocol• A new role for Remote Sensing

• The MODIS instrument on EOS Terra storms onto the IGARSS stage

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Relationship of Remote Sensing to “Ground Truth” & Campaigns

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• Throughout the first 35 years of the field, Remote Sensing measurements were compared to in situ measurements

• The bias toward believing that which we can put our hands on is evident in our choice of language “Ground Truth”

And, of course…

GraduateStudent

2001-2010

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• 2002: EOS Aqua Launch!• AMSR brings low frequency

radiometry back into the forefront

• 2003: WindSat on Coriolis Launch !• First space borne

demonstration of wind vector capability from passive microwave

• Rapid increase in internet capacity and data standardization through GIS enables new approaches to data sharing

• 2005: Google Earth released• 2007: First Iphone introduced

2010 and Beyond: Citizen Scientists Add a New Dimension!

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• Growth in Citizen Science interest increases available “work force”• Smartphones enable data collection & upload• Webtools enable worldwide collaboration• Digital photography enables inexpensive “truth” data• Facts:

• 250 Terabytes of high resolution images received from Earth Observation Satellites each day in 2009

• 1.18 billion mobile cell phones sold worldwide in 2008• 400 million downloads of Google Earth – users contribute geospatial information• Sensors of all types are being integrated in garments and mobile units are

commercially available• Atmospheric gas-level• Ultraviolet radiation• Heart rate • Humidity • Temperature• Noise Level

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Coral Reef Habitat Mapping: Enabling Community Mapping and Monitoring

1 km

Need: Map coral reef habitats with high spatial resolution imagery and detailed field data.

The challenge:Need for calibration &validation data; as coral reefs are remote, wet and cover large areas, so field data collection is challenging.

Part of the solution:- Georeferenced photo snorkel/dive transect method - Assistance needs to be provided to communities to build data collection and analysis

Dr. Chris Roelfsema and Prof. Stuart Phinn, University of Queensland

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Coral Reef Habitat Mapping

Training in: - field data collection & analysis,

to volunteers, rangers, students, researchers, technicians & dive instructors

- image processing to locally based remote sensing technicians

Outcomes for user & community:- Capacity building & ownership- Assessment of imagery +

habitat map overlaid with georeferenced photos

Habitat map

Imagery and photo transects

GEO-Wiki

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• Volunteers view both cropland and forest disagreement maps derived from three recent global land cover datasets GLC-2000, MODIS and GlobCover

• Select and visualize high resolution images with Google Earth & upload or view geo-tagged field pictures (e.g., from Panoramio.com, Confluence.org)

• Determine which land cover type is found on the ground and decide which dataset is correct

Dr. Steffen Fritz, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

17– For Official Use Only –

Predecisional, Deliberative Information - Not for Public Release

1.Go to: igarss.geo-wiki.org

2. 3.

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SatCam application for iPhone

• SatCam allows the user community to take part in satellite cloud product validation by collecting

coordinated sky, ground, and space observations.

Dr. Liam Gumley, Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison

SatCam Observation Example

Globo AmazoniaA Project by TV Globo, the largest network in Brazil

www.globoamazonia.com

• 41 million reports in 3 months

• 500,000 downloads of Orkut application

Illegal Logging

Globo Amazonia: Real impact

• Senator uses evidence provided by Internet protestors to put forward legislation

Discussion

• What will the next 10 years bring ???• Boom of micro satellites• Commercial Earth observing capacity increases

dramatically• Governments change their roles from actively

contributing to the EO capacity to overseeing and safeguarding the space infrastructures

• Near-real time access to space and in-situ sensor data for scientists and public alike

• Gaming industry takes on the VGI and Community Remote Sensing challenge

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