Abstract
Satellite remote sensing has provided major advances in understanding the climate system and its changes, by quantifying processes and spatio-temporal states of the atmosphere, land and oceans. In this Review, we highlight some important discoveries about the climate system that have not been detected by climate models and conventional observations; for example, the spatial pattern of sea-level rise and the cooling effects of increased stratospheric aerosols. New insights are made feasible by the unparalleled global- and fine-scale spatial coverage of satellite observations. Nevertheless, the short duration of observation series and their uncertainties still pose challenges for capturing the robust long-term trends of many climate variables. We point out the need for future work and future systems to make better use of remote sensing in climate change studies.
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Change history
27 September 2013
In the version of this Review Article originally published, on page 877, the mass balance of glaciers in the Karakarom region should have been 0.11±0.2 m yr−1. On page 879, in the second paragraph of the ‘Aerosols’ section, the estimated value for the direct radiative forcing should have been −1.0±0.34 W m−2. These errors have now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the Review Article.
02 December 2013
In the version of this Review Article originally published, the temperature anomaly trends for RSS and UAH in Fig. 2b,c should have been positive values. These errors have now been corrected in the online versions of the Review Article. In the previous corrigendum, the mass balance of glaciers in the Karakarom region should have read 0.11±0.22 m yr-1.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National High-tech Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2009AA12200101) and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2010CB530300).
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J.Y. and P.G. designed the framework of the Review. All authors contributed to writing.
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Yang, J., Gong, P., Fu, R. et al. The role of satellite remote sensing in climate change studies. Nature Clim Change 3, 875–883 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1908
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1908
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