Satellites Oceanography And Society

The book shows how the new observations from satellites required advances in theory and influenced societal decision-making. Chapters have a review with an extensive reference list, making the book an excellent source of information for biological and physical oceanographers and atmospheric scientists. A large range of state-of-the art applications of satellite data (altimeter, color, infrared radiometer, scatterometer, synthetic aperture radar) visible in regional-to-global scale ocean studies integrating satellite and in-situ measurements with circulation models are covered in the book. Subjects include forecasting of surface waves, both swell and windsea, and surface wind; El Niño/La Niña; exchange of water masses between ocean basins, Rossby waves; eddies and filaments; fisheries; coastal ocean dynamics; phytoplankton dynamics; and ideas to measure sea surface salinity.

This book covers the fundamental principles of measuring oceans from space, and also contains state-of-the-art developments in data analysis and interpretation and in sensors. Completely new will be material covering advances in oceanography that have grown out of remote sensing, including some of the global applications of the data. The variety of applications of remotely sensed data to ocean science has grown significantly and new areas of science are emerging to exploit the gobal datasets being recovered by satellites, particularly in relation to climate and climate change, basin-scale, air-sea interaction processes (e.g. El Nino) and the modelling, forecasting and prediction of the ocean.

This book offers a survey of the contribution of satellite data to the study of the ocean, focusing on the special insights that only satellite data can bring to oceanography. Topics range from ocean waves to ocean biology, spanning scales from basins to estuaries. Some chapters cover applications to pure research while others show how satellite data can be used operationally for tasks such as pollution monitoring or oil-spill detection.

Covering significant new advances in satellite oceanography, this new edition introduces remote sensing for graduate and advanced undergraduate students.