Recent Advances and Challenges of Monitoring Climate Change from Space - Satellite-based Applications on Climate Change - page 353

to be an important source for detecting vegetation phenology. In Chap. 17 , Drs. Li
and Qu show that satellite-derived information has demonstrated the value of
vegetation phenology observations from space. The advances and challenges and
future applications are discussed. The well-validated vegetation phenology from
satellite measurements will contribute to the improvement in ecosystem process
models (Li and Qu 2013 ).
Marine phytoplankton is another ideal indicator of environment and climate
change. In Chap. 18 , Uz et al. ( 2013 ) describe monitoring a sentinel species from
satellites, i.e., detecting Emiliania huxleyi using 25 years of AVHRR data products.
They found that AVHRR offers the longest continuous global data set of visible
reflectance which can be used to identify regional E. huxleyi blooms. The declining
long-term trend in bloom surface area was correlated to warm sea-surface tempera-
ture anomalies. The trend was weakly correlated to increased mixed layer depths.
They analyzed the well-established ocean color satellite measurements of E.
huxleyi blooms around the world via a data set extension back to 1982 by
identifying them in AVHRR imagery. The authors concluded the hypothesized
relationship between E. huxleyi bloom events and warming temperatures does not
hold over the long term.
In Chap. 19 , Drs. Sun and Yu give an overview of the recent advances on the
retrieval of land surface temperature (LST) from satellite observations. Special
attention has been paid to the LST retrieval from GOES satellites. A detailed
introduction is given about the literature review, the existing problems and
challenges, and the advantages of geostationary satellites and the GOES instrument.
Special attention was paid to the LST retrieval from geostationary GOES satellites.
Algorithm theoretical basis (both physical and mathematical) has been provided.
LST product is going to be generated from current GOES satellites from their
proposed dual window algorithm (Sun and Yu 2013 ).
Remote sensing of leaf, canopy, and vegetation water content for satellite
environmental data records (EDRs) is discussed by Dr. Hunt in Chap. 20 . Those
EDRs can be used to generate CDRs. The temporal record of multiple instruments,
such as MODIS, SPOT Vegetation, and AVHRR/3 sensors, and the future record
from VIIRS will create a global environmental data record of canopy water content
for climate change studies (Hunt et al. 2013 ). Measurement continuity with multi-
mission and multisensor measurements is also discussed this chapter.
21.3 Challenges of Monitoring Climate Change from Space
One of the most challenging and critical issues facing climatologists during the next
century is related to the operation of a long-term climate monitoring system capable
of delivering continuous and reliable data and information (Karl 1996 ). The opera-
tion of environmental data services is an important and challenging responsibility.
The growing needs for environmental data are coupled with opportunities for more
effective environmental information services, for a few new types of satellite