About Remote Sensing Systems

Remote sensing is the technology of observing the Earth from space. A weather image on the evening news is a familiar example. The Earth's surface and atmosphere naturally radiate energy in the form of microwaves. Our research company, Remote Sensing Systems, specializes in processing and analyzing microwave data collected by satellite microwave sensors.

The microwave spectrum is rich with information about the atmosphere (temperature, humidity, clouds, and rain) and the Earth's surface (temperature, vegetation, roughness, and moisture). Since microwaves can penetrate clouds, surface characteristics can be measured from space even when clouds are present. Applications of this technology include deducing wind speed and direction over the world's oceans from surface roughness measurements, measuring rainfall, and monitoring variations in polar sea ice extent. The image above illustrates these applications in the Norwegian Sea area.

As the population of our planet increases, it becomes vital that we better understand the physical processes that govern our climate and weather. In this pursuit, Remote Sensing Systems provides research-quality geophysical products from satellite data for studying climate variability and weather systems. These data products are revealing many secrets of our wondrous planet, Earth.

Most of our research is supported by the Earth Science Enterprise program at NASA. Please explore their web pages for more information on remote sensing and climate research. In addition to providing top quality SSM/I microwave radiometer data, we also direct you to several exciting microwave satellite programs that we are involved with: QuikScat, the NASA SeaWinds Scatterometer launched on July 19, 1999 to replace NSCAT, TMI (TRMM Microwave Imager) placed on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Satellite launched November 27, 1997, and AMSR (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer) flying aboard AQUA (launched May, 2002) and ADEOS-II (launched December, 2002).

Remote Sensing Systems is a research oriented business located in Santa Rosa, California. For more information relating to Remote Sensing Systems, please contact . The company was established in 1974 by Frank J. Wentz, a graduate in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Headed by Frank, the team of scientists includes Marty Brewer, Chelle Gentemann, Kyle Hilburn, Carl Mears, Thomas Meissner, Lucrezia Ricciardulli, and Deborah Smith.