#remote-sensing

#remote-sensing

Every year, regions of the world are hit by natural disasters such as hurricanes or floods. As a result of climate change, these phenomena have not only increased in number and severity, but it has also become more difficult to predict when they might occur. Although the areas most prone to these hazards try to take proactive measures, many sources of information are not timely enough or are of limited use.

Hyperspectral satellites can detect subtle chemical or material changes on the ground that traditional satellites cannot, making them especially useful for things like tracking crop quality, water resources or damage from natural disasters. Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the technology is expected to significantly enhance national capacities in fields like precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, urban planning and disaster management.

MethaneSAT, which its builders say is the most advanced methane-imaging satellite ever put in orbit, sought to globally map, then track emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. Their aim is to spur action to plug leaks, initially from the oil and gas industry, as a way to significantly lower near-term warming of the atmosphere. The satellite's main instrument, a highly sensitive spectrometer that can detect methane sources from space with unparalleled precision.

Google DeepMind introduced AlphaEarth Foundations, an artificial intelligence model designed to integrate massive volumes of Earth observation data into a unified digital representation of the planet. The system, described as functioning like a "virtual satellite", can process petabytes of multimodal inputs. The model addresses a long-standing challenge in Earth science: the difficulty of combining data from diverse sources and refresh rates into formats that researchers can use consistently.

Remote sensing data can be characterized by spatial, spectral, radiometric, and temporal resolutions, significantly influencing the effectiveness of various sensors used.