Tag Archives | Remote Sensing

Seeing China’s pollution from space

By on February 20, 2012 in Air quality, China, Remote Sensing

This post originally appeared on China Dialogue.  The Great Wall may not, after all, be visible from space – but Chinese air pollution is. A team of researchers at Battelle Memorial Institute and Columbia University, in collaboration with Yale University, recently used satellite readings to produce data on fine particulate concentrations in Chinese provinces. While these [...]

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Follow-up: Just how does China’s air quality compare globally?

By on February 16, 2011 in Air quality, China, Data, Remote Sensing

Thank you to all who read my previous post, “Chinese NGO releases Air Quality Transparency Index,” and to those have provided some excellent feedback and food for thought. In further exploring the link between information transparency and environmental performance, I made a statement that Chinese cities have a notorious reputation for being the world’s most polluted; however, data limitations could mean that there may be worse air quality out there.

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Google’s Earth Engine Officially Launched at COP-16 in Cancun

By on December 3, 2010 in Data, Remote Sensing

While climate negotiators were busy discussing the role of forests in the Cancun climate negotiations, Google was launching its Earth Engine –  a practical tool to help countries obtain information about their forests, which are critical carbon sinks, easily and freely. I originally wrote about the advantages of a tool like Earth Engine back in March. To [...]

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Scientists develop map of PM 2.5 levels using satellite data

By on September 28, 2010 in China, Remote Sensing

Canadian scientists Aaron van Donkelaar and Randall Martin at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, have created a map of global PM 2.5 (air particulates with diameters 2.5 microns or less, which is less than 1/3 the width of a strand of human hair and more damaging to the lungs than larger particles) concentrations from [...]

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Google Earth: Making Remote Sensing Accessible to the ‘Everyman’

Google Earth: Making Remote Sensing Accessible to the ‘Everyman’

By on March 17, 2010 in Policy, Remote Sensing

There is something so surreal and elegant about observing the earth from space.  This is one of the reasons why I find remote sensing so appealing; however, after spending a year just trying to learn the basics of remote sensing software and perfecting my land-cover classification skills, I realized that there’s an inherently steep learning [...]

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