[CONCEPT] Monitoring of physical and chemical atmospheric, land and ocean variables with remote sensing requires an understanding of Earth’s ecosystems. Understanding of systems can be based on expert knowledge, experimental relations or physical relations, and this understanding can be captured in a descriptive model. Models are to understand, detect, predict, and describe interactions within and between ecosystems and the atmosphere across scales that range from local to global.
Remote sensing can be used for parameter input in models, but also for spatial and temporal interpolation or extrapolation. This course provides an introduction to knowledge-driven, data-driven and physical modelling, starting with appropriate model selection given a specific problem or data availability. The course therefore deals with basic concepts and boundary conditions. Much emphasis is on integration of remote sensing observations into models, and selecting optimal object / pixel / time based mapping method for a given problem