Earth Research from Space

The Department was  established in 1974 at the initiative of Professor Valentin S. Etkin (1931-1995), the founder of this direction of the Earth remote sensing with the methods of radio physics. A broad program of basic and applied research, first launched under his leadership within the USSR Academy of Sciences, combined annual field experiments in various regions of the World Ocean (from the Black and Barents Seas to the Pacific Ocean) and simultaneous renewal of laboratory aircraft, satellites, and research vessels with new equipment.

Experimental works were conducted along with the theoretical studies, which aimed primarily at the development of the radio- and hydro physics models of oceanic phenomena.

The Earth’s remote sensing from space is actually the only source of data about what is happening to our planet on a global scale. Microwave radiation is a unique messenger bringing information about the natural environments of the Earth that cannot be provided by any other electromagnetic waves range. Microwave radiation properties are highly sensitive to the water content, temperature, and structure of natural terrestrial environments, so that microwave sensors, both active (scatterometers, radars) and passive (radiometers), provide useful information about the climatic, cryogenic, hydrological and carbon cycles of our planet. Based on this, one can find main parameters of the atmosphere, sea surface, ice sheets, soil, snow, and vegetation.

For over 45 years, the Department’s stuff members have been studying the Earth using data obtained by various sensors (active and passive) in microwave, IR and optical ranges. Under the leadership of Professors V.S. Etkin, Yu.A. Kravtsov and E.A. Sharkov, a leading scientific school for the development and practical application of radiophysical methods of Earth exploration has been established in the Department.

As of today, scientists of the Department work on satellite remote sensing data processing, theoretical studies and numerical modeling of terrestrial processes, and verify the results during field experiments. The central focus is on the following research areas:

• development of the scientific grounds to study the variability of the global climatic parameters and characteristics of the natural disastrous atmospheric vortices and phenomena in the “ocean-atmosphere” system affecting the planetary climate, study and monitoring of the global tropical cyclogenesis as one of the climate-forming factors;
• integrated use of satellite data to study mesoscale and sub-mesoscale hydrophysical processes in the seas and oceans;
• elaborating the methods to detect and forecast anthropogenic and natural pollution of the sea surface and their spread based on satellite sensing data;
• determination of snow cover characteristics, analysis of marine and freshwater ice condition and cohesion, study of Greenland and Antarctica glacial layers;
• methods to identify permafrost and soil freezing depth;
• development of the theory describing the formation of agitated sea surface radiation, experimental studies of the spatial and temporal structure of wind waves;
• development of the theory of radiation transfer in the “ocean–atmosphere” system and studies of global transfer of atmospheric moisture and latent heat in the Earth's atmosphere
• development of optical sounding methods and means for scattering environment;
• development of high-precision measuring systems for passive microwave sounding.

The researchers of the Department annually run field experiments in various parts of the Russian seas simultaneously with satellite imaging.