Remote Sensing’s Role in Assessing the Risks of Climate Extremes

Drought, extreme precipitation, and urban heat represent climate extremes with significant consequences to environment and society. There are uncertainties associated with the patterns of each, the driving factors that influence these patterns, and their eventual effects. This paper documents how the science and data provided by the remote sensing and Geographic Information Science (GIScience) community have reduced some of these uncertainties. For more than a half-century, observations and spatial analysis have revealed important patterns and processes of these extremes and the setting in which they occur. The current explosion of data and of the tools to manage and process it are required to address increasingly complex global challenges.