Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Variable
In situ
Remote sensing
Product
Status
Water level
Coastal gauge stations
Radar Altimeters
Satellite altimetry measures
water level in large water
bodies
Optical, active and passive
microwave RS data measure
the extent of water bodies,
floods and volumes
No operational product existing for water
bodies extent
Semi-operational products exist at local to
regional scales (* 100 m to 5 km)
Estimates of
groundwater
Monitoring bores
A residual product of GRACE total water
storage (TWS) after removal of other factors
(i.e., SSM, ice)
Interpretative use of optical and microwave data
(e.g., thermal anomalies)
No direct measurement of
groundwater
It is essential to have a good estimate of TWS
errors to derive a good groundwater estimates
GRACE provides an estimate of all water
storages; GOCE complements GRACE to
derive improved model of geoid
Vegetation stage
Field surveys, Aircraft
surveys
Environmental satellites (MODIS, MERIS,
MISR, SPOT, Landsat, Sentinels)
Optical vegetation indices (fPAR
and LAI)
passive or active microwave
derived estimates of vegetation
water content, biomass,
vegetation structure
Land-cover classifications
Open opportunities in use of radar and
microwave data to estimate biomass and
canopy height
A good understanding and numerous algorithms
for optical vegetation greenness indices
Precipitation
Surface Gages (manual
and automatic)
SSM/I, TRMM, AMSR, AMSR-E,
Geostationary environmental satellites, polar-
orbiting meteorological satellites, GPM,
NPOESS, Doppler radar
A routine generation of
precipitation products—hourly
0.25-degree resolution via
operational and research
platforms
Estimates from full-resolution
observations available up to
instantaneous, 4 km resolution,
albeit more sporadically.
Corrected numerical weather
prediction (NWP) derived
fields for structure and
distribution
The Radar systems (e.g., TRMM PR and
CloudSat CPR) provide a unique and crucial
addition to our observational capabilities for
precipitation.
A retrieval at higher latitudes remains an open
challenge due to contamination by the surface
background as well as by the detection of
light intensity, low-level, frozen precipitation.
