Introduction to Environmental Remote Sensing

4.0 credits

Remote sensing refers to the field of using transmitted, reflected, and absorbed radiation to infer properties of different phenomena. This course explores the fundamentals of remote sensing as a tool to understand the Earth system. This will include the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared as well as models for the ways in photons in each of these regions are generated, transmitted, reflected, and absorbed. Key remote sensing technologies such as passive radiometers and spectrometers along with active sensors like LiDAR and RADAR will be discussed. The course will cover methods for processing remote sensing data from raw digital number counts to geophysical variables and how these data can be used to better understand processes in ecology, geology, and atmospheric science.