Dr David G Long of Brigham Young University, Provo, UT USA

Remote sensing is the study of the environment from a distance. Recent developments in
satellite-based sensors and computer processing techniques offer unique perspectives of
our planet. Microwave remote sensing includes active (radars) and passive (radiometers)
sensors. This talk focuses on the applications of a class of active microwave remote
sensors known as scatterometers. Satellite scatterometers have been built and flown by
several nations including, the U.S., ESA, India, and China. Wind scatterometers are
satellite radars designed to measure near-surface vector winds over the ocean. The
scatterometer does not directly measure the wind. Rather, it measures the normalized
radar backscatter (σo) of the surface. Then, from multiple σo measurements, the wind
blowing over the ocean's surface is inferred. Scatterometer wind measurements have
wide application in air-sea interaction and weather observation. Wind scatterometers
typically operate at one of two bands, C (5.4 GHz) or Ku (13.4 GHz). Ku band is more
sensitive to wind, but also to the adverse effects of rain. However, this sensitivity can be
exploited to simultaneously estimate wind and rain.
Scatterometers also collect σo measurements over land and ice. While the low resolution
(25 km) of the scatterometer measurements can limit their utility in land and ice studies,
reconstruction processing enables the generation of enhanced resolution σo images from
past and present scatterometers. Such enhanced resolution scatterometer images have
been proven to be useful for high resolution wind/rain estimation as well as in a variety
of studies of polar ice and tropical vegetation. In particular enhanced resolution
scatterometer observations have been used over land to study deforestation of tropical
rain forest and desertification. Over the glaciated regions of Greenland and Antarctica,
the radar signal is very sensitive to melting conditions and can thus be used to global
warming conditions. The contrast between ocean and ice scattering enables tracking of
major Antarctic icebergs in all weather conditions. In this talk, a brief overview of
scatterometer remote sensing is provided and a number of applications of microwave
remote sensing are described.

Biography:

Dr. Long received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of
Southern California early in 1989 after previously receiving the B.S. and M.S. degrees in
Electrical Engineering at Brigham Young University in 1982 and 1983, respectively.
From 1983 through 1990 he was employed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
in the Radar Science and Engineering Section. He was responsible for the design and
development of the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) system to measure ocean surface
winds from space. NSCAT successfully flew aboard Japanese ADEOS spacecraft in
1996. He was a Group Leader in the Radar Systems Engineering Group at JPL were he
supervised work on the design and analysis of spaceborne scatterometer and SAR
systems including NSCAT, SIR-C, and Magellan. He was the original Experiment
Manager for SCANSCAT (now known as SeaWinds, it was first launched in 1999 on
QuikSCAT, again in 2003 on ADEOS-II, and again as RapidScat on the International
Space Station in 2014).
Since 1990 Dr. Long has been on the faculty of the Electrical and Computer Engineering
department (www.ee.byu.edu) at Brigham Young University (www.byu.edu). He is full
Professor who teaches radar, remote sensing, communications, and signal processing. He
is the Director of the BYU Center for Remote Sensing and Head of the Microwave Earth
Remote Sensing Laboratory (www.mers.byu.edu). Since 2012 has been an Associate
Dean of the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology (www.et.byu.edu).
Dr. Long has been the principal investigator for a continuing NASA-funded research
projects in scatterometry, climate studies, rain observations, SAR, and the Scatterometer
Climate Record Pathfinder (www.scp.byu.edu). He has had extensive experience in
developing tower, aircraft, and spaceborne scatterometers and aircraft SAR systems. He
has been a member of several NASA Science Teams including the Ocean Vector Winds
Science Team (OVWST) and the Tropical Rain Mapping Mission (TRMM). His
publication record includes over 118 journal papers and 300 conference papers. He has
received several NASA Award of Achievement and Team Recognition Awards. His
research interests include microwave remote sensing, spaceborne scatterometry, synthetic
aperture radar, signal processing, polar ice, and mesoscale atmospheric dynamics. He is
an associate editor for IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters. He is a co-author
of the textbook, F. Ulaby and D.G. Long, Microwave Radar and Radiometric Remote
Sensing, ISBN: 978-0-472-11935-6, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 2013, available through Artech House and Amazon.

Email:

Address:Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, , UT, Utah, United States