There is considerable interest in using remote sensing to characterize the hydrologic behavior of the land surface on a routine basis. Information on moisture fluxes between the surface and lower atmosphere reveals linkages and land–atmosphere feedback mechanisms, aiding our understanding of energy and water balance cycles. Techniques that combine information on land and atmospheric properties ...

Semi-structured focus group interviews were employed to examine factors that affect the likelihood that resource managers in southern Africa will use information on vegetation fires provided by two satellite-derived products: an active fire product and a burned area product. The two products are updated regularly and aim to deliver the state-of-the-art in the global monitoring of fires from sat...

The use of satellite data to monitor inland water quality in the Amazon basin is investigated. Both floodplain and river main channels are considered using the medium resolution sensors MODIS and MERIS A large database from the HYBAM project gives the water main properties for a large floodplain, 700 km upstream the Amazon river mouth. Parameters measured include the total suspended sediment (T...

We present a method for estimating monthly burned area globally at 1 spatial resolution using Terra MODIS data and ancillary vegetation cover information. Using regression trees constructed for 14 different global regions, MODIS active fire observations were calibrated to burned area estimates derived from 500-m MODIS imagery based on the assumption that burned area is proportional to counts of...

The detection of multiple cloud layers using satellite observations is important for retrieval algorithms as well as climate applications. In this paper, we describe a relatively simple algorithm to detect multiple cloud layers and distinguish them from vertically-extended clouds. The algorithm can be applied to coincident passive sensors that derive both cloud-top pressure from the thermal inf...

The frequent occurrence of high cirrus overlapping low water cloud poses a major challenge in retrieving their optical properties from spaceborne sensors. This paper presents a novel retrieval method that takes full advantage of the satellite data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The main objectives are identification of overlapped high cirrus and low water clouds...

The analysis of rapid environment changes requires orbital sensors with high frequency of data acquisition to minimize cloud interference in the study of dynamic processes such as Amazon tropical deforestation. Moreover, a medium to high spatial resolution data is required due to the nature and complexity of variables involved in the process. In this paper we describe a multiresolution multitem...

We present the first application of Snow Covered Area and Grain size model (SCAG) to Visible Infrared imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) assess these retrievals with finer?resolution fractional snow cover maps from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI). Because OLI avoids saturation issues common 1–7 in visible wavelengths, we re-assess accuracy SCAG Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiomete...

It is a current need of research to extensively use the freely available satellite images. The most commonly available satellite images are Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). The problems with these images are their poor spatial resolution that restricts their use in various applications. This restriction may be minimized ...