CEOS EO HANDBOOK – MEASUREMENTS
Earth observation satellites provide important data about the Earth and its environment, helping develop our understanding of the basic Earth System and human influences on it. These data cover measurements of a very wide range of geophysical parameters, spanning the whole spectrum of the environment – atmosphere, land, oceans, ice and snow. You can read more about these measurements in the Earth Observation Handbook .

The CEOS Missions, Instruments, and Measurements database contains information on many key measurements of interest to the main user groups of Earth observation satellite data. The table below includes links to further information on broader measurement categories (left), more detailed measurements (centre), and measurement timelines (right).
Atmosphere
Atmosphere Measurments
Aerosols
Lightning Detection
Atmospheric Humidity Fields
Liquid water and precipitation rate
Atmospheric Temperature Fields
Ozone
Atmospheric Winds
Radiation budget
Cloud particle properties and profile
Trace gases (excluding ozone)
Cloud type, amount and cloud top temperature
Timelines
Land
Land Measurments
Albedo and reflectance
Soil moisture
Inland Waters
Surface temperature (land)
Landscape topography
Vegetation
Multi-purpose imagery (land)
Timelines
Ocean
Ocean Measurments
Multi-purpose imagery (ocean)
Ocean topography/currents
Ocean colour/biology
Ocean wave height and spectrum
Ocean Salinity
Surface temperature (ocean)
Ocean surface winds
Timelines
Snow and Ice
Snow and Ice Measurments
Ice sheet topography
Sea ice cover, edge and thickness
Snow cover, edge and depth
Timelines
Gravity and Magnetic Fields
Gravity and Magnetic Field Measurments
Gravity, Magnetic and Geodynamic measurements
Timelines