IMPACT Tech Talks

From Pixels to Products: An Overview of Satellite Remote Sensing

Dr. Sundar Christopher

  • Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Earth Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville
  • Served as Associate Director of the Earth System Science Center, Chairman of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Director of Institute of Remote Sensing Applications and Dean of the College of Science

From Pixels to Products: An Overview of Satellite Remote Sensing

This talk provides an overview of some of the fundamentals of satellite remote sensing, ranging from how radiance is converted to reflectance and temperature from typical polar orbiting and geostationary platforms. Some of the concepts that will be discussed include spectral signatures, image classification, and spectral/spatial domain image transforms. Using selected examples, Dr. Christopherdiscusses how geophysical products are created from satellite data and why quality control flags are important. Dr. Christopher also discusses validation and inter-comparison strategies among satellite, surface and other data sets.