Satellite Images and Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) Help Monitor Global Warming and Climate Change

Since 1990’s a new generation of satellite sensors with powerful capabilities have been launched to collect massive amounts of data about our planet and the many changes it has experienced.

There are dozens of remote sensing satellites orbiting the Earth collecting invaluable information about the Earth’s surface, oceans and the atmosphere and how they interact. Satellite images have been collected for scientific and technical purposes as well as just appreciating its simple beauty. These satellites collect information that our eyes cannot, collections from 30M to 0.5M resolution is now available.

To view original story with images go here http://news.satimagingcorp.com/2009/10/satellite_image_technology_monitoring_global_warming_and_climate_change_.html

Satellite images provide important land coverage information for mapping and classification of land cover features, such as vegetation, soil, water and forests for monitoring and managing Earth’s vital natural resources and the current global climate changes.

The Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. From glacial periods (or “ice ages”) where ice covered significant portions of the Earth to interglacial periods where ice retreated to the poles or melted entirely – the climate and the Earth has continuously changed.

The shallow end of the Glaciers are melting swiftly. Glaciologists have determined that areas of the glacial lobe were 98 feet lower in 2004 than they were in 2000. That’s double the rate of pre-1999 thinning.

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years.

Scientists have been able to piece together a picture of the Earth’s climate dating back decades to millions of years ago by analyzing a number of surrogate, or “proxy,” measures of climate such as ice cores, boreholes, tree rings, glacier lengths, pollen remains, and ocean sediments, and by studying changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun.

Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. Studying this data collected over many years reveal the signals of a changing climate.

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will increase during the next century unless greenhouse gas emissions decrease substantially from present levels. Increased greenhouse gas concentrations are very likely to raise the Earth’s average temperature, influence precipitation and increase in storm patterns as well as raise sea levels. The magnitude of these changes, however, is uncertain.

Digital Elevation Models

Satellite images allow scientists to remove vegetation, water and geological cover from the image data which allows them to produce the most detailed available Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of landscape topography. The creation of DEMs will revolutionize geological applications, land-use studies, soil science, and much more to better understand the global climate changes occurring around the world.

Digital elevation models provide details about landscape features which in result, will allow us to clearly make out the shape of our landscape and understand how water, ice, and  soil might move across its surface, how it came to be its present shape and how rapidly the changes are occurring.

About Satellite Imaging Corporation

Satellite Imaging Corporation (SIC) delivers 3D terrain models with posting intervals from 3m to 90m. The high resolution <1m Satellite imaging mosaics and 3m-5m DEMs provide operators with the appropriate planning tools to reduce the risk of environmental impact during operations and improve on safety procedures. SIC provides a large amount of satellite remote sensing data at different spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions from sensors such as GeoEye-1, Worldview-1, QuickBird, IKONOS, SPOT-5, LANDSAT and ASTER, by using the appropriate combination of bands to bring out the geographical and manmade features that are most pertinent to your project for detecting and monitoring changes.

Satellite Imaging Corporation combines orthorectified satellite images and digital aerial photography mosaics with extracted vector and client-supplied attribute data to create single, data-rich images for GIS and other mapping applications to achieve a multi-layered result for many types of analysis.

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A prominent scientist who’s followed the science of global warming from the beginning, Dyson explains why climate models have no scientific merit, why average global ground temperature is a great fiction, and what he believes the real dangers of increased CO2 in the atmosphere are. He suggests that the relatively simple solution of land use management could potentially give us the ability to control the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere at any level we’d like, and there’s no need to stop burning coal and oil. From peoplesarchive.com

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Are these only heat-related deaths, or does that include other extreme conditions?

Is this based on IPCC findings/models that do NOT show a correlation of daytime highs to AGW?

Is this net or gross? How many lives are spared by cooler or wetter weather?
Byderule – since you have blocked me from answering or even viewing your questions, I think it only fair that you not participate in mine.

And Bob, I think I’ll create a separate AR4 question to adequately address your points. Thanks for bringing it up, though.
Thanks, Trevor, for at least attempting to provide a quantitative view, but it’s going to be a little tough without seeing the actual study.

It still seems speculative, The one quantitative example cited, the SE Asia dengue outbreak was tied to weather, NOT climate – unless a study shows conclusively that this area’s weather phenomena correlate to global warming.
One paradox at work that might be masked is that while modernization decreases infant/maternal mortality rates and increases life span, it also increases the rate of disease as well as the death rate. Anybody who doesn’t understand this paradox, we can discuss it in another question, later…I have to rush to the ER…

Here is one scientist’s take:

Many of the comments to previous blogs have stated that models are “just” a set of assumptions, and that the processes in the Earth’s climate are so complex that they defy our attempts to model them with any rigor. There are assumptions that are made when models are built, but those assumptions are not simply pulled out of a bag of magic tricks. In fact, arbitrary, unjustified assumptions are generally repelled from the modeling community because, first and foremost, the models need to describe some set of observations and the evolution of those observations, i.e. prediction. Most components of models are, just like my original modeling efforts, a representation of mathematical equations that rigorously describe the motion of the atmosphere. The idea that I and my colleagues would work from some potpourri of unjustified assumptions is, in fact, a bit offensive.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/RickyRood/comment.html?entrynum=57&tstamp=200801

Jello, welcome to our side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

So what makes climate easier to predict? Do we have such a good understanding of the earth’s climate that we can make such predictions? If so why are the oceans cooling and not warming like the models predict? Why did nobody make such a prediction?

Plllease Give Me a good answer!

Thanks!!!

Any help is appreciated.