The objective of this course is to apply principles of radiative transfer to remote sensing of the lower atmosphere and the upper ocean. The course emphasizes physical understanding of the basic principles and addresses a breadth of applications in both passive and active remote sensing of the atmosphere and oceans. This course is NOT about sensors/instrumentation, data analysis, or image processing. The goal of the course is to provide a broad conceptual framework for understanding the methodology and applications of remote sensing, so students have the foundation for further learning on the topic, the basis for integrating remote sensing into their research on atmospheric, oceanic, and earth sciences, and to provide a context for various astrodynamics and space science applications.

Students that havetaken this class in previous years have been approximately half engineering and half science students, including students from aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, applied math, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, chemistry, geography, geology, and physics. While the course has a formal prerequisite of ATOC/ASEN 5225: Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, about half of the students take this course without the prerequisite. The rationale for the prerequisite is to provide students with a background understanding of the characteristics of the atmosphere and oceans that are being sensed remotely, including motivation for particular data requirements.

Because of the technical nature of the class, students need to spend a significant amount of time outside of class working through the equations and physical principles so that they can learn the material. I typically give 7 homework assignments during the semester. The philosophy behind the homework assignments is not to test the ability of students to solve obscure problems, but rather to reinforce the principles taught in class and give some examples of applications of the material. The homeworks are designed so that most of the students in the class should be able to successfully complete a homework assignment in 3-4 hours with a minimum amount of outside help. I encourage students to work in groups on their homeworks; students can learn alot from each other. Optional extra credit problems are assigned. Some are relatively easy and are designed for students that did poorly on the test to obtain some extra credit. Other problems are more advanced, intended for the more motivated students that are looking for something more challenging.

My motivation for giving tests goes beyond evaluating the students. Students need to integrate the material from the course as a whole, not just respond to each lecture or each homework assignment as it comes. Studying for the test largely accomplishes this integration, by looking over and integrating the past material; it also reinforces their long-term memory for the material. For the test itself, I attempt to test the student's ability to integrate the concepts from the course (leave your calculators at home on test day). I never give in-class open-book exams because there is the tendency for the student to adopt the "recipe" approach rather than to understand the material.

Once a week (for about the first 2/3 of the class), a class period is devoted to a short quiz and in-class problem solving session. The quizzes are intended to provide feedback to the students on what they have (and have not) learned during the past week. The quizzes are gone over in class so the student can get immediate feedback, but there are no recorded grades. Group problem solving is done to help prepare the students for the weekly homework assignments and to encourage teamwork among the students in working on the homework problems.

A term project is required for the course. Depending on the student's interest, this project may be a library research paper or a small-scale original research project. About 50% of the past students in this class have done a research project. I view this project to be important for a several reasons. First, the students are able to use the background that they have gained from the course to delve deeply into a topic, allowing them to get some depth in a specific area. More importantly, the process of doing the project helps students "learn how to learn" on their own, and gets them immersed in the primary literature. I think that students need to develop experience in formulating their own research problems and questions to address, before they attempt to identify a Ph.D. thesis topic. Students also need as much experience as possible in technical writing.

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