Remote sensing has played an important role in studying land surface processes. Geostationary satellites such as the GOES-R series can observe the earth every 5–15 minutes providing us with more observations than widely used polar orbiting satellites. Here, we outline current efforts utilizing geostationary observations in environmental science and look towards the future of GOES observations in the carbon cycle, ecosystem disturbance, and other areas of application in environmental science.
Remote sensing has played an important role in studying land surface processes. Geostationary...
Review status: this preprint is currently under review for the journal BG.
Reviews and syntheses: Ongoing and emerging opportunities to improve environmental science using observations from the Advanced Baseline Imager on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites
Anam M. Khan1,Paul C. Stoy1,2,3,4,James T. Douglas4,Martha Anderson5,George Diak6,Jason A. Otkin6,7,Christopher Hain8,Elizabeth M. Rehbein9,and Joel McCorkel10Anam M. Khan et al.Anam M. Khan1,Paul C. Stoy1,2,3,4,James T. Douglas4,Martha Anderson5,George Diak6,Jason A. Otkin6,7,Christopher Hain8,Elizabeth M. Rehbein9,and Joel McCorkel10
Received: 04 Dec 2020 – Accepted for review: 02 Jan 2021 – Discussion started: 08 Jan 2021
Abstract. Environmental science is increasingly reliant on remotely-sensed observations of the Earth's surface and atmosphere. Observations from polar-orbiting satellites have long supported investigations on land cover change, ecosystem productivity, hydrology, climate, the impacts of disturbance, and more, and are critical for extrapolating (upscaling) ground-based measurements to larger areas. However, the limited temporal frequency at which polar-orbiting satellites observe the Earth limits our understanding of rapidly evolving ecosystem processes, especially in areas with frequent cloud cover. Geostationary satellites have observed the Earth's surface and atmosphere at high temporal frequency for decades, and their imagers now have spectral resolutions in the visible and near-infrared regions that are comparable to commonly-used polar-orbiting sensors like the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), or Landsat. These advances extend applications of geostationary Earth observations from weather monitoring to multiple disciplines in ecology and environmental science. We review a number of existing applications that use data from geostationary platforms and present upcoming opportunities for observing key ecosystem properties using high-frequency observations from the Advanced Baseline Imagers (ABI) on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), which routinely observe the Western Hemisphere every 5–15 minutes. Many of the existing applications in environmental science from ABI are focused on estimating land surface temperature, solar radiation, evapotranspiration, and biomass burning emissions along with detecting rapid drought development and wildfire. Ongoing work in estimating vegetation properties and phenology from other geostationary platforms demonstrates the potential for expanding ABI observations to estimate vegetation greenness, moisture, and productivity at high temporal frequency across the Western Hemisphere. Finally, we present emerging opportunities to address the relatively coarse resolution of ABI observations through multi-sensor fusion to resolve landscape heterogeneity and to leverage observations from ABI to study the carbon cycle and ecosystem function at unprecedented temporal frequency.
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Remote sensing has played an important role in studying land surface processes. Geostationary satellites such as the GOES-R series can observe the earth every 5–15 minutes providing us with more observations than widely used polar orbiting satellites. Here, we outline current efforts utilizing geostationary observations in environmental science and look towards the future of GOES observations in the carbon cycle, ecosystem disturbance, and other areas of application in environmental science.
Remote sensing has played an important role in studying land surface processes. Geostationary...