An idea that really stuck with me about Remote Sensing was that the data it gained involved no intervention, in comparison to most scientific measurements, which involve a type of manual application (Lillesand et al., 2015). Even the use of our eyes is a form of remote sensing and that is effectively how it works. It utilises electromagnetic radiation that is reflected or emitted from the Earth’s surface which can then be generated into a vast range of images. Many of these images produced are a result of radiation that is not visible by the human eye, unleashing incredible potential in understanding many of the Earth’s processes. Satellites record this information from different portions of the electromagnetic spectrum (Figure 1), which is measured by their wavelengths, and these invisible types of light are assigned visible colours to represent them.
The Larson C Ice sheet in Antarctica is currently on the brink of producing an ice berg the size of Delaware, which without infrared imaging would be a lot harder to see, however Figure 2 shows clearly the crack by representing water in the crack as black as a result of satellite imagery from the project MIDAS Sentinel-1 radar satellite, I currently don’t quite understand how the image differentiates between the crack and the ice cover. An aspect of remote sensing which I am planning on better understanding.
The crack through Larsen C ice shelf is visible as a dark line from bottom right to top left of this satellite image (MIDAS, 2017)
References
Lillesand, T., Kiefer, R.W. and Chipman, J. (2015) Remote sensing and image interpretation. Hoboken, NJ, United States: John Wiley & Sons.
MIDAS, P. (2017). Larsen C Ice Shelf rift continues to grow. [online] Project MIDAS. Available at: http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/larsen-c-rift-continues-to-grow/ [Accessed 23 May 2017].
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