PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING REMOTE SENSING

What is remote sensing?

Remote sensing is a way of obtaining information about an object or target without
coming into physical contact with it.
In the current context, this means observations of the Earth and its atmosphere by measuring
various forms of electromagnetic radiation from the ultra-violet to radio waves. (Sound
waves can also be used for remote sensing, and are particularly useful under water.)

The instruments which are used to make the measurements may be based on the ground, in
aircraft or on satellites. Sometimes all three are used in special field campaigns to find out
more about a particular region. Ground-based measurements can be very important for
validating satellite measurements.

Remote sensing methods may be classified as active or passive.

• Passive methods are those which measure natural radiation, such as sunlight
or the radiation emitted from the Earth's surface.
• Active methods use electromagnetic radiation which is transmitted to a target
and the interactions between the target and the radiation are monitored.

Remote sensing instruments may also be classified as imaging or non-imaging.

• Imaging instruments produce a 2-dimensional picture of a part of the Earth's
surface. The level of resolution depends on the height above the ground; an
aircraft can give higher resolution than a satellite, but covers a smaller area.
Imaging systems provide information about the colour, temperature or roughness
of the surface.
• Non-imaging instruments are used for temperature profiles, surface
roughness, wind speed and direction.

The brief outline above gives some indication of the wide variety of information available
using remote sensing techniques. Different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are used for
different applications, and some of these will be outlined briefly below. Examination of the
absorption (or transmission) spectrum of the atmosphere shows that some wavelengths can
pass through the atmosphere with little or no attenuation, while other wavelengths are
completely absorbed. These properties are exploited by various remote sensing techniques.

Radiation Sources
There are two main types of sources, the natural sources used by passive methods and the
"artificial" sources used by active methods.
• Natural sources are sunlight and the emitted radiation from the Earth and its
atmosphere
• "Artificial" sources: Common sources are lidar or laser radar in the visible,
radar and microwaves at longer wavelengths. include laser light or radar signals
fired at a target.

Both of these are, in fact, examples of black-body radiation. (All objects in fact emit black-
body radiation.) A black-body is an ideal body whose emission spectrum, which depends on
temperature and wavelength, is described by Planck's Law.

2π hc 2
Eλ =
λ5 (e ( hc / kλT ) −1)

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where h = 6.63x10-34 Js is Planck's constant.
k = 1.38x10-23 JK-1 is Boltzmann's constant
c = 3x108 ms-1 is the speed of light.
T = temperature in degrees Kelvin
λ = wavelength.

The wavelength at which the Planck radiation curve is a maximum is related to the
temperature. This relationship between temperature and wavelength is given by Wien's law.
λ m = 2898/T µ m

The total amount of radiation emitted by a body at a temperature T can be found by

integrating over all wavelengths. This leads to the Stefan-Boltzmann law.

E = σ T4 Wm-2

where σ = 5.67x10-8 is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.

Remote sensing applications and techniques by wavelength region

As was mentioned earlier, different remote sensing techniques exploit the
absorption/transmission properties of the electromagnetic spectrum. The main regions to be
considered are:
Ultraviolet: 0.1µm < λ < 0.4 µm
Visible : 0.4 µm < λ < 0.7 µm absorption, scattering, extinction
Near Infrared: 0.7 µm < λ < 1.5µm
Thermal Infrared: 3.0 µm < λ < 13 µm emission
Microwave: 1.0 mm < λ < tens of cm.

Some examples of remote sensing applications are given below. They are listed according to
spectral region.
Ultraviolet region: This is used for monitoring ozone concentrations. These measurements
are made in the Huggins band which is around 0.3µm. In the case of ground based
instruments the amount of radiation reaching the ground is measured. In the case of the
TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) and SBUV (Solar Backscatter Ultra Violet)
satellite instruments, it is the amount of solar radiation scattered back to space which is
measured. In both cases the amount of radiation received will depend on the amount of ozone
present. The ozone layer in the atmosphere, in fact absorbs a large proportion of the ultra-
violet radiation before it reaches the ground, in particular that shorter than 0.3µm
wavelength.

Visible and Near Infrared: These two regions are normally considered together. Passive
methods are the most commonly used and the radiation source is the sun. Visible and near
infrared radiation passes through the atmosphere with very little attenuation. Blue
wavelengths can also penetrate 10-20m into the ocean and other water bodies, thus giving us
information about their physical and biological properties. The active methods used in this
region involve the use of lidar or laser radar, and involve firing a laser beam at the
atmosphere and examining the return signal. (Lidar is useful for getting information about
the vertical structure of the atmosphere.)

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Reflectance Methods: This wavelength range provides us with information about different
land surfaces because of the different reflectivities of soil, vegetation, sand, different rock
types, ice, snow and water. The near infrared wavelengths are particularly important for
agriculture and forestry because of the changes in reflectivity of vegetation in this region.
There is a strong increase in vegetation reflectivity around 0.7 µm because the chlorophyll in
green leaf vegetation absorbs strongly at shorter wavelengths (0.6 - 0.7µm). The high
reflectivity in the Infrared is because of multiple scattering by mesophyll in plants. .A
parameter called the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index , which can be related to the
amount of growing vegetation, and particularly the level of biomass activity, has been
defined
NDVI = R(NIR) - R(VIS)
R(NIR) + R(VIS)
Where R(NIR) and R(VIS) are reflectivities in the near infrared and visible respectively. The
reflectance is highly correlated with photosynthetically active radiation. This can be used to
produce a map or image of actively growing vegetation by generating an NDVI value for
each pixel in a satellite image.

Attenuation Methods: The visible and near infrared also provide information about the
aerosols, ozone, water vapour and other trace gases in the atmosphere through measurements
of the attenuation of sunlight as it passes through the atmosphere. This is done using
multispectral radiometers with filters at appropriately chosen wavelengths, for example 0.61
µm for ozone and 0.93µm for water vapour. The attenuation of sunlight may be due to
scattering in the case of aerosols and molecules, or absorption as in the case of ozone and
water vapour. The attenuation is described by Beer’s law:

I(λ) = I0(λ)e -σ (λ )secθ

Here I is the measured intensity, I0 is the intensity at the top of the atmosphere, λ is the
wavelength, σ is the optical thickness and θ is the solar zenith angle. In this example, the
quantity derived from the measurements is the optical thickness, which in turn, is related to
the things we wish to know. Different wavelengths are affected differently, thus by
measuring at a number of different wavelengths we can obtain information about the number
and size distribution of aerosol particles, after correcting for molecular scattering and
gaseous absorption. In the case of ozone, we can get the concentrations of these gases after
corrections have been made for attenuation due to molecules and aerosols. For water vapour
it is also necessary to correct for molecules and aerosols, but it is also necessary to model
atmospheric transmission.

Thermal Infra-Red: This region is divided into two regions, 3-5µm, and the atmospheric
window around 8-13µm. At the shorter wavelengths it is necessary to consider both the
incoming/reflected solar radiation and emitted terrestrial radiation because they have similar
magnitudes. In the atmospheric window, only emitted radiation need be considered because
the level of solar radiation is very small.

The thermal infra-red is used to obtain information about surface temperature and also
vertical temperature profiles of the atmosphere. This is relatively straight forward over the
ocean because the reflectivity of water is well known. It is more difficult over land because
the high variability of surface types. In the 3-5µm region measurements are normally made at
night to avoid the complications associated with reflected solar radiation. The atmospheric
window can be used at any time. In cloudy weather, the radiation reaching a satellite will

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come from the tops of the clouds, and thus the temperature determined will be that of the
clouds rather than the ground.

Remote Temperature Sensing: To determine the temperature, the atmosphere is divided into
a number of layers, each with its own blackbody radiance, which is given by
Planck’s law. The radiance seen by the satellite is a weighted sum of the radiances
from all the layers. This can then be converted to a temperature. To determine the
weighting functions, a model of the chemical composition of the atmosphere is
needed. The observed brightness temperature at the satellite is thus
∞
Tobs = ∫ 0T(h')w(h')dh

Here h' is the altitude, T(h') is the layer temperature and w(h') is the weighting function for
the layer.

CO2 is the gas most commonly used to derive temperature profiles because it is well mixed
throughout the atmosphere, and its distribution is well known. The most commonly used
band is the broad, deep band at 15µm. The different carbon dioxide lines have different
absorption coefficients, so this allows us to relate the radiance received at the satellite with a
particular altitude, or more likely, a pressure. If the absorption coefficient for CO 2 is high,
then the radiation for that wavelength will come from high in the atmosphere. What this
means is that, as radiation travels upwards from the surface, it is absorbed by successive
layers, which then emit radiation, until there are no more layers with CO 2. Lower absorption
coefficients mean radiation comes from lower in the atmosphere. Or, to put it another way,
the lower the absorption coefficient, the further into the atmosphere the satellite can see.

Surface Temperature: As noted earlier, there is at atmospheric window at 12.5 µm and this
gives the surface temperature. In terms of equations

0 ∂τν ( P)
Iν = Bν (Ts )ιν ( Ps ) + ∫ Bν τ ( z ) dP
P ∂P

Where Iν is the radiance measured by the satellite, Bν is the Planck function, τ is the
transmissivity, and P the pressure of the layer. The term ∂τ ν(P)/∂P is the weighting function,
and may be considered to be the probability of emission from that particular pressure level.

Remote sensing for Gas Profiles: The are various bands of water vapour and ozone in the
infrared and microwave regions of the atmosphere. Once the temperature profile
has been determined from CO2 emission, details of the water vapour distribution
may be determined using similar techniques to those described above.

The satellite observes the brightness temperature at wavelengths near an absorption line of
the gas spectrum. From this an absorption profile can be determined, and then used to
determine a concentration profile. Both temperature and gas profiles must be determined
using an iterative procedure because the amount of absorption depends on temperature.

Microwave region: This has very low levels of natural radiation and thus active methods are
generally used, although there are some applications that use microwave emissions. The short
wavelength boundary is limited by absorption in the atmosphere and the long wavelength end

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is limited by instrument constraints, and by the reflective properties of the Earth and
atmosphere. Microwaves undergo very little attenuation in their passage through the
atmosphere except in the presence of heavy rain. Microwaves are comparable in size to
surface irregularities, and thus can provide information about surface roughness. Examples
are altimeters, scatterometer, and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The heavy rain effects are
in fact exploited by meteorological radar applications.
As was mentioned above, active methods are used in the microwave region. A number of
different types of measurements are made, including time of travel from source to target and
back, Doppler shift in frequency, and polarization of radiation. Time of travel to the target
and back allows the distance to be determined. Since radar is capable of high frequency
resolution, doppler shift can be measured and thus giving speed in the direction of the line of
sight. Some specific examples follow.

Radar altimetry measures the range to the target by measuring the time delay in return of the
reflected pulse. If the shape of the return pulse is also recorded information can also be
obtained about the shape of the underlying surface or wave height.

The scatterometer is used to obtain information about wind speed and direction. It differs
from radar altimetry in that a number of pulses are sent out in different directions. Analysis
of the backscattered radiation provides the desired information.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a microwave imaging technique. Because microwaves are
not affected by clouds it can provide information about the surface when visible and infrared
methods cannot. The reflections are received from successive positions of the platform as it
moves along its path. This allows an image to be built up that is similar to that which would
be obtained from a real antenna with an antenna several hundreds of metres across.
{Resolution is inversely related to aperture size.) The processing of the signals is complex
and involves processing of the Doppler shift of the received radiation.

Limb Sounding:
The examples outlined so far could best be described as nadir viewing; that is, the satellite is
looking down through the atmosphere. In limb sounding techniques, the satellite sensor
looks in a direction which is almost tangential to the Earth's surface. This method can be used
to measure both emission and absorption, and gives better vertical resolution than nadir-
viewing methods. It is very useful for minor constituents of the atmosphere such as CH4,
N2O, CO, NO, etc. because the atmospheric path is very long.

Sun Sensor
h
R
R
The diagram illustrates the basic principle of Limb sounding. If the satellite views the sun
through the atmosphere, as it rises or sets (solar occultation), the measurements made can be
related to a particular height, h. The vertical resolution with this method is around 1km, but
horizontal resolution is poor.

An example of limb sounding is the SAGE (Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment)
series of instruments. These instruments measure extinction of solar radiation at sunrse and
sunset. The wavelengths chosen allow extinction profiles of NO2, O3 and water vapour to be

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obtained. These extinction measurements are then inverted to obtain concentration profiles.
These instruments have provided much valuable information about vertical profiles,
especially in the stratosphere. They have also provided information about polar stratospheric
clouds and allow mapping of volcanic dust in the stratosphere as it is dispersed (for example
Mt. Pinatubo in 1991).

Atmospheric corrections
Atmospheric corrections are necessary to a greater or lesser extent for all remote sensing
methods. These corrections involve a number of factors including Rayleigh scattering by
molecules, and absorption by gases such as ozone, carbon dioxide and water vapour. They
require knowledge of the concentration, pressure and humidity profiles. Corrections may also
be needed for atmospheric refraction.

The corrections needed depend on the particular application, but several examples will be
given to indicate the necessity of appropriate corrections. In the case of satellite derived
NDVI indices using reflected sunlight it is necessary to apply a correction for the attenuation
of the sunlight as it passes through the atmosphere. The intensity received at the satellite will
be made up of the intensity of the radiation reflected at the surface plus forward scattering of
the reflected sunlight by molecules and possibly scattering by aerosols as well. To obtain a
correct and useful index the corrections must be made. Failure to make the corrections may
lead to large discrepancies between indices for the same scene viewed from different
directions, as well as misrepresenting the biomass activity.

Another example is the determination of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) by measuring

emitted radiation at various wavelengths. The wavelengths generally used are those where
the atmosphere is most transparent, but even in the “windows” the atmosphere is never
completely clear. Thus it is necessary to correct for atmospheric emissions (and maybe
clouds). One approach is to use two close channels and assume that both will be affected in
the same way, so that, by using an appropriate algorithm, the effect can be removed.
Comparisons between satellite and surface measurements can also help. Another factor which
may need to be taken into account is stratospheric aerosol, especially after volcanic eruptions,
otherwise the retrieved temperatures may be too low.