The cryosphere, that region of the world where water is temporarily or permanently frozen, plays a crucial role on our planet. Recent developments in remote sensing techniques, and the acquisition of new data sets, have resulted in significant advances in our understanding of all components of the cryosphere and its processes. This book, based on contributions from 40 leading experts, offers a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the methods, techniques and recent advances in applications of remote sensing of the cryosphere. Examples of the topics covered include: • snow extent, depth, grain-size and impurities • surface and subsurface melting • glaciers • accumulation over the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets • ice thickness and velocities • gravimetric measurements from space • sea, lake and river ice • frozen ground and permafrost • fieldwork activities • recent and future cryosphere-oriented missions and experiments All figures are in color and provide an excellent visual accompaniment to the technical and scientific aspect of the book. Readership: Senior undergraduates, Masters and PhD Students, PostDocs and Researchers in cryosphere science and remote sensing. Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere is the significant first volume in the new Cryosphere Science Series. This new series comprises volumes that are at the cutting edge of new research, or provide focussed interdisciplinary reviews of key aspects of the science.

Introduction to Satellite Remote Sensing: Atmosphere, Ocean and Land Applications is the first reference book to cover ocean applications, atmospheric applications, and land applications of remote sensing. Applications of remote sensing data are finding increasing application in fields as diverse as wildlife ecology and coastal recreation management. The technology engages electromagnetic sensors to measure and monitor changes in the earth's surface and atmosphere. The book opens with an introduction to the history of remote sensing, starting from when the phrase was first coined. It goes on to discuss the basic concepts of the various systems, including atmospheric and ocean, then closes with a detailed section on land applications. Due to the cross disciplinary nature of the authors' experience and the content covered, this is a must have reference book for all practitioners and students requiring an introduction to the field of remote sensing. - Provides study questions at the end of each chapter to aid learning - Covers all satellite remote sensing technologies, allowing readers to use the text as instructional material - Includes the most recent technologies and their applications, allowing the reader to stay up-to-date - Delves into laser sensing (LIDAR) and commercial satellites (DigitalGlobe) - Presents examples of specific satellite missions, including those in which new technology has been introduced

Many advances in spaceborne instrumentation, remote sensing, and data analysis have occurred in recent years, but until now there has been no book that reflects these advances while delivering a uniform treatment of the remote sensing of frozen regions. Remote Sensing of Snow and Ice identifies unifying themes and ideas in these fields and presents them in a single volume. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the remote sensing of the Earth’s cryosphere. Explaining why cryospheric observations are important and why remote sensing observations are essential, it offers thorough surveys of the physical properties of ice and snow, and of current and emerging remote sensing techniques. Presenting a technical review of how the properties of snow and ice relate to remote sensing observations, the book focuses on principles by which useful geophysical information becomes encoded into the electromagnetic radiation detected during the remote sensing process. The author then discusses in detail the application of remote sensing methods to snow, freshwater ice, glaciers, and icebergs. The book concludes with a summary that examines what remote sensing has revealed about the cryosphere, where major technical problems still exist, and how these problems can be addressed.

Remote Sensing plays a key role in monitoring the various manifestations of global climate change. It is used routinely in the assessment and mapping of biodiversity over large areas, in the monitoring of changes to the physical environment, in assessing threats to various components of natural systems, and in the identification of priority areas for conservation. This book presents the fundamentals of remote sensing technology, but rather than containing lengthy explanations of sensor specifications and operation, it concentrates instead on the application of the technology to key environmental systems. Each system forms the basis of a separate chapter, and each is illustrated by real world case studies and examples. Readership The book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in earth science, environmental science, or physical geography taking a course in environmental remote sensing. It will also be an invaluable reference for environmental scientists and managers who require an overview of the use of remote sensing in monitoring and mapping environmental change at regional and global scales. Additional resources for this book can be found at: http://www.wiley.com/go/purkis/remote.

The versatile and available GNSS signals can detect the Earth’s surface environments as a new, highly precise, continuous, all-weather and near-real-time remote sensing tool. This book presents the theory and methods of GNSS remote sensing as well as its applications in the atmosphere, oceans, land and hydrology. Ground-based atmospheric sensing, space-borne atmospheric sensing, reflectometry, ocean remote sensing, hydrology sensing as well as cryosphere sensing with the GNSS will be discussed per chapter in the book.

This edited book summarizes numerous research studies on remote sensing and GIS of natural resource management for the Himalaya region done by Indian Institutions and Universities over the last decade. It gives an overview of hydrometeorological studies on Himalayan water resources and addresses concerns in the development of water resources in this region, which is dealing with an increased pressure in population, industrialization and economic development. While the source of some of the major rivers of India are found in the Himalayas, the glaciers and water bodies in the region are continuously shrinking leading to a depletion of water and deterioration of water quality. This is affecting a population of up to 2.5 billion people. The ecosystems have been under threat due to deforestation, loss of biodiversity, expansion of agriculture and settlement, overexploitation of natural resources, habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, mining, construction of roads and large dams, and unplanned tourism. Spaceborne remote sensing with its ability to provide synoptic and repetitive coverage has emerged as a powerful tool for assessment and monitoring of the Himalayan resources and phenomena. This work serves as a resource to students, researchers, scientists, professionals, and policy makers both in India and on a global level.

This open access book focuses on the practical application of electromagnetic polarimetry principles in Earth remote sensing with an educational purpose. In the last decade, the operations from fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar such as the Japanese ALOS/PalSAR, the Canadian Radarsat-2 and the German TerraSAR-X and their easy data access for scientific use have developed further the research and data applications at L,C and X band. As a consequence, the wider distribution of polarimetric data sets across the remote sensing community boosted activity and development in polarimetric SAR applications, also in view of future missions. Numerous experiments with real data from spaceborne platforms are shown, with the aim of giving an up-to-date and complete treatment of the unique benefits of fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data in five different domains: forest, agriculture, cryosphere, urban and oceans.

Glaciers and ice sheets have been melting significantly during recent decades, posing environmental threats at local, regional and global scales. Changes in glaciers are one of the clearest indicators of alterations in regional climate, since they are governed by changes in accumulation (from snowfall) and ablation (by melting of ice). Glacier chan

This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. It comprises important scientific research on the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable mountain development and will serve as a basis for evidence-based decision-making to safeguard the environment and advance people’s well-being. The compiled content is based on the collective knowledge of over 300 leading researchers, experts and policymakers, brought together by the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme (HIMAP) under the coordination of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). This assessment was conducted between 2013 and 2017 as the first of a series of monitoring and assessment reports, under the guidance of the HIMAP Steering Committee: Eklabya Sharma (ICIMOD), Atiq Raman (Bangladesh), Yuba Raj Khatiwada (Nepal), Linxiu Zhang (China), Surendra Pratap Singh (India), Tandong Yao (China) and David Molden (ICIMOD and Chair of the HIMAP SC). This First HKH Assessment Report consists of 16 chapters, which comprehensively assess the current state of knowledge of the HKH region, increase the understanding of various drivers of change and their impacts, address critical data gaps and develop a set of evidence-based and actionable policy solutions and recommendations. These are linked to nine mountain priorities for the mountains and people of the HKH consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals. This book is a must-read for policy makers, academics and students interested in this important region and an essentially important resource for contributors to global assessments such as the IPCC reports.

An international team of over 150 experts provide up-to-date satellite imaging and quantitative analysis of the state and dynamics of the glaciers around the world, and they provide an in-depth review of analysis methodologies. Includes an e-published supplement. Global Land Ice Measurements from Space - Satellite Multispectral Imaging of Glaciers (GLIMS book for short) is the leading state-of-the-art technical and interpretive presentation of satellite image data and analysis of the changing state of the world's glaciers. The book is the most definitive, comprehensive product of a global glacier remote sensing consortium, Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS, http://www.glims.org). With 33 chapters and a companion e-supplement, the world's foremost experts in satellite image analysis of glaciers analyze the current state and recent and possible future changes of glaciers across the globe and interpret these findings for policy planners. Climate change is with us for some time to come, and its impacts are being felt by the world's population. The GLIMS Book, to be released about the same time as the IPCC's 5th Assessment report on global climate warming, buttresses and adds rich details and authority to the global change community's understanding of climate change impacts on the cryosphere. This will be a definitive and technically complete reference for experts and students examining the responses of glaciers to climate change. World experts demonstrate that glaciers are changing in response to the ongoing climatic upheaval in addition to other factors that pertain to the circumstances of individual glaciers. The global mosaic of glacier changes is documented by quantitative analyses and are placed into a perspective of causative factors. Starting with a Foreword, Preface, and Introduction, the GLIMS book gives the rationale for and history of glacier monitoring and satellite data analysis. It includes a comprehensive set of six "how-to" methodology chapters, twenty-five chapters detailing regional glacier state and dynamical changes, and an in-depth summary and interpretation chapter placing the observed glacier changes into a global context of the coupled atmosphere-land-ocean system. An accompanying e-supplement will include oversize imagery and other other highly visual renderings of scientific data.