Satellite based remote sensing of weather and climate: recent achievements and future perspectives

Spaceborne remote sensing provides valuable information about the state of the Earth-atmosphere system and its components in an area-wide and continuous manner. Over the past 50 years a range of satellite platforms carrying many different sensors has been constructed to monitor atmospheric parameters used in meteorological and climatological studies, and the information retrieved from satellite-based sensors has greatly enhanced our understanding of the processes and dynamics within the Earth-atmosphere system. The present paper gives an overview of existing satellites and sensors, together with the developed algorithms to retrieve meteorological and climatological parameters. Furthermore, it gives an outlook on new systems planned for the near future. Copyright  2011 Royal Meteorological Society Supporting information may be found in the online version of this article.