Remote Sensing Research
The primary areas of study at ESOC include:
- arctic climatology,
- ecology,
- geology,
- hyperspectral imaging,
- hydrology,
- paleoclimate,
- and remote sensing.
A long-term goal of ESOC research is to investigate problems in global geoscience, in particular questions of global change, through use of satellite observations. At present, the emphasis is on understanding the land and land-atmosphere interactions and the cryosphere. Some of the topics include biochemical cycles involving vegetation, soils, hydrology and water budgets, and human-induced change. Predictive models are being developed that incorporate inputs derived from satellite remote sensing data, and make it feasible to address global-scale questions. Much of the Center's research occurs within research groups at CIRES, the parent organization to ESOC.
Arctic Climate Change
The Steffen research group studies the annual and interannual variability of cyrospheric parameters in the Arctic in response to climate perturbation. These include recent changes in the Greenland ice sheet and ocean-climate-sea ice interactions.
Ice Sheets and Sea Level
The Abdalati research group is focused on understanding the contributions of the Earth's great ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica, as well as large glacier systems to global sea level rise in the context of a changing climate. Much of their research involves the development and application of remote sensing tools as well as process models to understand the mass balance of glaciers and ice sheets on a broad scale, and the mechanisms that drive the mass balance.
Land Use and Climate Change
The Chase research group focuses on modeling and observational studies of the effects of the land surface and changing landcover (for example, deforestation, desertification, and irrigation) and their effects on regional and global climate. Tropical and sub-tropical Monsoon systems have been a particular area of study. We also have projects in the area of non-linear geophysics -- examining climate feedbacks in the hydrological cycle and the effects of a variable sun on climate models.
The Noone research group explores the ways large scale circulations of the atmosphere and oceans can change. The goal is to understand the role water plays in Earth's climate; whether it be in the atmosphere as vapor and clouds, on the landscape as snow and permafrost, or on the ocean as sea ice. Noone's research group uses climate models fitted with stable water and CO2 isotope tracers to diagnose climate system processes in ways which compliment more tradiation methods.
Landscape and Ecosystem Ecology
The Wessman research group seeks to gain insights on feedback dynamics between ecosystem structure and function, and the influence of disturbance on trajectories of ecosystem processes. The group's research approaches involve field studies, remote sensing methodologies investigating temporal and spatial heterogeneity in ecosystem properties, as well as landscape and ecosystem modeling.
Scaling in Surface Hydrology
The Gupta research group is broadly focused on unifying biophysical processes with statistical variability across multiple scales of space and time. Primarily, Dr. Gupta's work has focused on multi-scale hydrologic processes, which formed the foundations for some of his more recent research in multi-scale hydrologic phenomena. Hydrologic phenomena consist of problems requiring a grand synthesis of coupled processes, geometry and statistics across multiple scales of space and time.
Lidar Remote Sensing and Laser Spectroscopy
The Chu Research Group focuses in both remote sensing technology development and atmospheric and space science study with observations, data analysis, and theoretical modeling.
