Surface Remote Sensing

The research activity of the Surface Remote Sensing group is focused on methods to estimate various land surface parameters from satellite data.

Central issues in the method development are:

  • physical description of the target
  • modelling of the measurements and their physically based simplification
  • statistical methods
  • new measurement methods and instruments.

The group has developed a method for retrieval of the leaf area index from airborne measurements.
 

The group arranges actively field campaigns and developes measurement instruments and methods to support the algorithm development. During 2008-2010 the field campaign SNORTEX dedicated to reflectance behaviour of snow was arranged in Sodankylä in co-operation with FMI-ARC, FMI-CC, FMI-OBS, Météo-France, LGGE, Finnish Geodetic Institute, SYKE, University of Helsinki and University of Eastern Finland. In summer 2010 the field campaign RASCALS was arranged in Greenland summit together with Finnish Geodetic Institute in order to find the link between the optical and microwave properties of snow from the point of view of earth observation satellites.

Most of the activity takes place in the framework of the satellite application facility (SAF) projects financially supported by EUMETSAT. In these projects the algorithm development is brought to the operational level. Parameters estimated from the satellite data are:

  • surface albedo (CM-SAF)
  • snow extent (LSA-SAF, H-SAF)
  • fractional snow cover (H-SAF)
  • snow status (H-SAF)

More information concerning the SAF projects is available in the following pages :

An example of the surface albedo product (CM-SAF) developed by the group showing the Arctic area.