Description

Book Synopsis

Learn basic Python programming to create functional and effective visualizations from earth observation satellite data sets

Thousands of satellite datasets are freely available online, but scientists need the right tools to efficiently analyze data and share results. Python has easy-to-learn syntax and thousands of libraries to perform common Earth science programming tasks.

Earth Observation Using Python: A Practical Programming Guide presents an example-driven collection of basic methods, applications, and visualizations to process satellite data sets for Earth science research.

  • Gain Python fluency using real data and case studies
  • Read and write common scientific data formats, like netCDF, HDF, and GRIB2
  • Create 3-dimensional maps of dust, fire, vegetation indices and more
  • Learn to adjust satellite imagery resolution, apply quality control, and handle big files
  • Develop useful workflows and learn to share c

    Table of Contents

    Foreword

    Introduction

    1 A Tour of Current Satellite Missions and Products

    1.1 History of Computational Scientific Visualization

    1.2 Brief catalog of current satellite products

    1.2.1 Meteorological and Atmospheric Science

    1.2.2 Hydrology

    1.2.3 Oceanography and Biogeosciences

    1.2.4 Cryosphere

    1.3 The Flow of Data from Satellites to Computer

    1.4 Learning using Real Data and Case Studies

    1.5 Summary

    1.6 References

    2 Overview of Python

    2.1 Why Python?

    2.2 Useful Packages for Remote Sensing Visualization

    2.2.1 NumPy

    2.2.2 Pandas

    2.2.3 Matplotlib

    2.2.4 netCDF4 and h5py

    2.2.5 Cartopy

    2.3 Maturing Packages

    2.3.1 xarray

    2.3.2 Dask

    2.3.3 Iris

    2.3.4 MetPy

    2.3.5 cfgrib and eccodes

    2.4 Summary

    2.5 References

    3 A Deep Dive into Scientific Data Sets

    3.1 Storage

    3.1.1 Single-values

    3.1.2 Arrays

    3.2 Data Formats

    3.2.1 Binary

    3.2.2 Text

    3.2.3 Self-describing data formats

    3.2.4 Table-Driven Formats

    3.2.5 geoTIFF

    3.3 Data Usage

    3.3.1 Processing Levels

    3.3.2 Product Maturity

    3.3.3 Quality Control

    3.3.4 Data Latency

    3.3.5 Re-processing

    3.4 Summary

    3.5 References

    4 Practical Python Syntax

    4.1 "Hello Earth" in Python

    4.2 Variable Assignment and Arithmetic

    4.3 Lists

    4.4 Importing Packages

    4.5 Array and Matrix Operations

    4.6 Time Series Data

    4.7 Loops

    4.8 List Comprehensions

    4.9 Functions

    4.10 Dictionaries

    4.11 Summary

    4.12 References

    5 Importing Standard Earth Science Datasets

    5.1 Text

    5.2 NetCDF

    5.3 HDF

    5.4 GRIB2

    5.5 Importing Data using xarray

    5.5.1 netCDF

    5.5.2 GRIB2

    5.5.3 Accessing datasets using OpenDAP

    5.6 Summary

    5.7 References

    6 Plotting and Graphs for All

    6.1 Univariate Plots

    6.1.1 Histograms

    6.1.2 Barplots

    6.2 Two Variable Plots

    6.2.1 Converting Data to a Time Series

    6.2.2 Useful Plot Customizations

    6.2.3 Scatter Plots

    6.2.4 Line Plots

    6.2.5 Adding data to an existing plot

    6.2.6 Plotting two side-by-side plots

    6.2.7 Skew-T Log-P

    6.3 Three Variable Plots

    6.3.1 Filled Contour

    6.3.2 Mesh Plots

    6.4 Summary

    6.5 References

    7 Creating Effective and Functional Maps

    7.1 Cartographic Projections

    7.1.1 Projections

    7.1.2 Plate Carrée

    7.1.3 Equidistant Conic

    7.1.4 Orthographic

    7.2 Cylindrical Maps

    7.2.1 Global plots

    7.2.2 Changing projections

    7.2.3 Regional Plots

    7.2.4 Swath Data

    7.2.5 Quality Flag Filtering

    7.3 Polar Stereographic Maps

    7.4 Geostationary Maps

    7.5 Plotting datasets using OpenDAP

    7.6 Summary

    7.7 References

    8 Gridding Operations

    8.1 Regular 1D grids

    8.2 Regular 2D grids

    8.3 Irregular 2D grids

    8.3.1 Resizing

    8.3.2 Regridding

    8.3.3 Resampling

    8.4 Summary

    8.5 References

    9 Meaningful Visuals through Data Combination

    9.1 Spectral and Spatial Characteristics of Different Sensors

    9.2 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

    9.3 Window Channels

    9.4 RGB

    9.4.1 True Color

    9.4.2 Dust RGB

    9.4.3 Fire/Natural RGB

    9.5 Matching with Surface Observations

    9.5.1 With user-defined functions

    9.5.2 With Machine Learning

    9.6 Summary

    9.7 References

    10 Exporting with Ease

    10.1 Figures

    10.2 Text Files

    10.3 Pickling

    10.4 NumPy binary files

    10.5 NetCDF

    10.5.1 Using netCDF4 to create netCDF files

    10.5.2 Using Xarray to create netCDF files

    10.5.3 Following Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata conventions

    10.6 Summary

    11 Developing a Workflow

    11.1 Scripting with Python

    11.1.1 Creating scripts using text editors

    11.1.2 Creating scripts from Jupyter Notebooks

    11.1.3 Running Python scripts from the command line

    11.1.4 Handling output when scripting

    11.2 Version Control

    11.2.1 Code Sharing though Online Repositories

    11.2.2 Setting-up on GitHub

    11.3 Virtual Environments

    11.3.1 Creating an environment

    11.3.2 Changing environments from the command line

    11.3.3 Changing environments in Jupyter Notebook

    11.4 Methods for code development

    11.5 Summary

    11.6 References

    12 Reproducible and Shareable Science

    12.1 Clean Coding Techniques

    12.1.1 Stylistic conventions

    12.1.2 Tools for Clean Code

    12.2 Documentation

    12.2.1 Comments and docstrings

    12.2.2 README file

    12.2.3 Creating useful commit messages

    12.3 Licensing

    12.4 Effective Visuals

    12.4.1 Make a Statement

    12.4.2 Undergo Revision

    12.4.3 Are Accessible and Ethical

    12.5 Summary

    12.6 References

    Conclusion

    A Installing Python

    A.1 Download and Install Anaconda

    A.2 Package management in Anaconda

    A.3 Download sample data for this book

    B Jupyter Notebooks

    B.1 Running on a Local Machine (New Coders)

    B.2 Running on a Remote Server (Advanced)

    B.3 Tips for Advanced Users

    B.3.1 Customizing Notebooks with Configuration Files

    B.3.2 Starting and Ending Python Scripts

    B.3.3 Creating Git Commit templates

    C Additional Learning Resources

    D Tools

    D.1 Text Editors and IDEs

    D.2 Terminals

    E Finding, Accessing, and Downloading Satellite Datasets

    E.1 Ordering data from NASA EarthData

    E.2 Ordering data from NOAA/CLASS

    F Acronyms

    Acknowledgements

Earth Observation Using Python

    Product form

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    RRP £141.95 – you save £14.19 (9%)

    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Fri 19 Jun 2026.

    A Hardback by Rebekah B. Esmaili


      View other formats and editions of Earth Observation Using Python by Rebekah B. Esmaili

      Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc
      Publication Date: 20/08/2021
      ISBN13: 9781119606888, 978-1119606888
      ISBN10: 1119606888

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Learn basic Python programming to create functional and effective visualizations from earth observation satellite data sets

      Thousands of satellite datasets are freely available online, but scientists need the right tools to efficiently analyze data and share results. Python has easy-to-learn syntax and thousands of libraries to perform common Earth science programming tasks.

      Earth Observation Using Python: A Practical Programming Guide presents an example-driven collection of basic methods, applications, and visualizations to process satellite data sets for Earth science research.

      • Gain Python fluency using real data and case studies
      • Read and write common scientific data formats, like netCDF, HDF, and GRIB2
      • Create 3-dimensional maps of dust, fire, vegetation indices and more
      • Learn to adjust satellite imagery resolution, apply quality control, and handle big files
      • Develop useful workflows and learn to share c

        Table of Contents

        Foreword

        Introduction

        1 A Tour of Current Satellite Missions and Products

        1.1 History of Computational Scientific Visualization

        1.2 Brief catalog of current satellite products

        1.2.1 Meteorological and Atmospheric Science

        1.2.2 Hydrology

        1.2.3 Oceanography and Biogeosciences

        1.2.4 Cryosphere

        1.3 The Flow of Data from Satellites to Computer

        1.4 Learning using Real Data and Case Studies

        1.5 Summary

        1.6 References

        2 Overview of Python

        2.1 Why Python?

        2.2 Useful Packages for Remote Sensing Visualization

        2.2.1 NumPy

        2.2.2 Pandas

        2.2.3 Matplotlib

        2.2.4 netCDF4 and h5py

        2.2.5 Cartopy

        2.3 Maturing Packages

        2.3.1 xarray

        2.3.2 Dask

        2.3.3 Iris

        2.3.4 MetPy

        2.3.5 cfgrib and eccodes

        2.4 Summary

        2.5 References

        3 A Deep Dive into Scientific Data Sets

        3.1 Storage

        3.1.1 Single-values

        3.1.2 Arrays

        3.2 Data Formats

        3.2.1 Binary

        3.2.2 Text

        3.2.3 Self-describing data formats

        3.2.4 Table-Driven Formats

        3.2.5 geoTIFF

        3.3 Data Usage

        3.3.1 Processing Levels

        3.3.2 Product Maturity

        3.3.3 Quality Control

        3.3.4 Data Latency

        3.3.5 Re-processing

        3.4 Summary

        3.5 References

        4 Practical Python Syntax

        4.1 "Hello Earth" in Python

        4.2 Variable Assignment and Arithmetic

        4.3 Lists

        4.4 Importing Packages

        4.5 Array and Matrix Operations

        4.6 Time Series Data

        4.7 Loops

        4.8 List Comprehensions

        4.9 Functions

        4.10 Dictionaries

        4.11 Summary

        4.12 References

        5 Importing Standard Earth Science Datasets

        5.1 Text

        5.2 NetCDF

        5.3 HDF

        5.4 GRIB2

        5.5 Importing Data using xarray

        5.5.1 netCDF

        5.5.2 GRIB2

        5.5.3 Accessing datasets using OpenDAP

        5.6 Summary

        5.7 References

        6 Plotting and Graphs for All

        6.1 Univariate Plots

        6.1.1 Histograms

        6.1.2 Barplots

        6.2 Two Variable Plots

        6.2.1 Converting Data to a Time Series

        6.2.2 Useful Plot Customizations

        6.2.3 Scatter Plots

        6.2.4 Line Plots

        6.2.5 Adding data to an existing plot

        6.2.6 Plotting two side-by-side plots

        6.2.7 Skew-T Log-P

        6.3 Three Variable Plots

        6.3.1 Filled Contour

        6.3.2 Mesh Plots

        6.4 Summary

        6.5 References

        7 Creating Effective and Functional Maps

        7.1 Cartographic Projections

        7.1.1 Projections

        7.1.2 Plate Carrée

        7.1.3 Equidistant Conic

        7.1.4 Orthographic

        7.2 Cylindrical Maps

        7.2.1 Global plots

        7.2.2 Changing projections

        7.2.3 Regional Plots

        7.2.4 Swath Data

        7.2.5 Quality Flag Filtering

        7.3 Polar Stereographic Maps

        7.4 Geostationary Maps

        7.5 Plotting datasets using OpenDAP

        7.6 Summary

        7.7 References

        8 Gridding Operations

        8.1 Regular 1D grids

        8.2 Regular 2D grids

        8.3 Irregular 2D grids

        8.3.1 Resizing

        8.3.2 Regridding

        8.3.3 Resampling

        8.4 Summary

        8.5 References

        9 Meaningful Visuals through Data Combination

        9.1 Spectral and Spatial Characteristics of Different Sensors

        9.2 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

        9.3 Window Channels

        9.4 RGB

        9.4.1 True Color

        9.4.2 Dust RGB

        9.4.3 Fire/Natural RGB

        9.5 Matching with Surface Observations

        9.5.1 With user-defined functions

        9.5.2 With Machine Learning

        9.6 Summary

        9.7 References

        10 Exporting with Ease

        10.1 Figures

        10.2 Text Files

        10.3 Pickling

        10.4 NumPy binary files

        10.5 NetCDF

        10.5.1 Using netCDF4 to create netCDF files

        10.5.2 Using Xarray to create netCDF files

        10.5.3 Following Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata conventions

        10.6 Summary

        11 Developing a Workflow

        11.1 Scripting with Python

        11.1.1 Creating scripts using text editors

        11.1.2 Creating scripts from Jupyter Notebooks

        11.1.3 Running Python scripts from the command line

        11.1.4 Handling output when scripting

        11.2 Version Control

        11.2.1 Code Sharing though Online Repositories

        11.2.2 Setting-up on GitHub

        11.3 Virtual Environments

        11.3.1 Creating an environment

        11.3.2 Changing environments from the command line

        11.3.3 Changing environments in Jupyter Notebook

        11.4 Methods for code development

        11.5 Summary

        11.6 References

        12 Reproducible and Shareable Science

        12.1 Clean Coding Techniques

        12.1.1 Stylistic conventions

        12.1.2 Tools for Clean Code

        12.2 Documentation

        12.2.1 Comments and docstrings

        12.2.2 README file

        12.2.3 Creating useful commit messages

        12.3 Licensing

        12.4 Effective Visuals

        12.4.1 Make a Statement

        12.4.2 Undergo Revision

        12.4.3 Are Accessible and Ethical

        12.5 Summary

        12.6 References

        Conclusion

        A Installing Python

        A.1 Download and Install Anaconda

        A.2 Package management in Anaconda

        A.3 Download sample data for this book

        B Jupyter Notebooks

        B.1 Running on a Local Machine (New Coders)

        B.2 Running on a Remote Server (Advanced)

        B.3 Tips for Advanced Users

        B.3.1 Customizing Notebooks with Configuration Files

        B.3.2 Starting and Ending Python Scripts

        B.3.3 Creating Git Commit templates

        C Additional Learning Resources

        D Tools

        D.1 Text Editors and IDEs

        D.2 Terminals

        E Finding, Accessing, and Downloading Satellite Datasets

        E.1 Ordering data from NASA EarthData

        E.2 Ordering data from NOAA/CLASS

        F Acronyms

        Acknowledgements

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