No 1 (2019)

The results of analysis of climatic series of global and regional cloudiness for 1983–2009. Data were obtained in the framework of the international satellite project ISCCP. The technology of statistical time series analysis including smoothing algorithm and wavelet analysis is described. Both methods are intended for the analysis of non-stationary series. The results of the analysis show that both global and regional cloudiness show a decrease of 2–6%. The greatest decrease is observed in the tropics and over the oceans. Over land, the decrease is minimal. The correlation coefficient between the global cloud series on the one hand and the global air and ocean surface temperature series on the other hand reaches values (–0.84) — (–0.86). The coefficient of determination that characterizes the accuracy of the regression for the prediction of global temperature changes based on data on changes in the lower cloud, in this case is 0.316.

The paper deals with the distinction between thawed and frozen soils in the upper 5 cm layer for two stations in Russia: Belaya Gora (Yakutia) 68.5° N and Anadyr (Chukotka) 64.78° N — by using Sentinel 1 C-band radar data for the period of 2014–2016 years. Determination of the frozen/thawed soil state is carried out in three ways: 1) by multi-temporal radar data on the basis of a significant in 3–5 dB difference in the backscatter coefficient σ0 in the transition of freezing/thawing soil state, 2) by finding the threshold value of σ0 at which the temperature in the upper soil layer falls below 00С, 3) by texture features for one- channel images. The graphs of the AFI (air freezing index) for the period of 2012-2018 with trends are constructed based on the archive data of air temperature for the study areas.

Interpretation materials of the Russian space survey «Resource-P» (Geotone) in the visible and infrared bands made it possible to identify crush belts and faults of the northeastern, sublatitudinal and submeridional strike that determine the structural position of uranium mineralization within the Uvat ore cluster in the East Sayan. The principal possibility of using a high-resolution multi-zone space survey (3 m) for detecting metasomatically altered ore-bearing rocks of the Lower Proterozoic and Riphean-Paleozoic carbonate-terrigenous deposits was determined.

The article presents the temperature spectroscopic dielectric model of moist soils, developed on the basis of measurements of six thawed and frozen Arctic soils with different contents of organic matter, from 30 to 90%. This model allows predicting the complex permittivity values of moist soil, which are in good agreement with the data of dielectric measurements. The model is applicable in the frequency range from 0.05 to 15 GHz, the temperature range from –30° to +25 °C, the humidity range from 0.009 to 1.001 g/g. The model for use in remote sensing algorithms of humidity and soil temperature using space radiometric and radar sensing data can be recommended.

Within the framework of the program on Earth remote sensing from space, the hyperspectral camera NA-GS (scientific instrument "Hyperspectrometer") produced by NPO Lepton (Zelenograd, Moscow) will be installed on the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) for experimental testing of the ground-space system for monitoring and forecasting natural and man-made disasters. The practical use of this system is associated with solving certain problems of thematic processing hyperspectral images that must meet certain quality criteria. In this paper, we propose a technique for determining the operational capabilities of NA-GS instrument based on statistical simulation modeling (SSM) data. The concept of the proposed SSM includes the ability to perform model experiments for a test polygon of complex shape, simulation of hyperspectral imaging of selected parts of the polygon with a specified accuracy, and taking into account the clouds and the zenith angle of the sun. The influence of external observation conditions on the quality of hyperspectral images is considered. Numerical experiments were carried out for selected test areas. The analysis of the results obtained confirms reliability of the proposed technique.