CoastWatch Satellite Course - Alaska - Sep 2023

CoastWatch Satellite Course

Welcome to the NOAA CoastWatch Links to an external site. September 2023 Satellite Course!  We are excited to have you in the course and look forward to helping you learn about satellite data and how to obtain and work with it! 

 Learning Outcomes

  1. Understand the basic principles of remote sensing and the main ocean parameters
  2. Become familiar with the use of the ERDDAP platform to visualize, subset and download data
  3. Learn where to find satellite data
  4. Learn to judge which products are appropriate for your application, and when in doubt, you will know who to contact to get guidance
  5. Apply what you learn on a personal project so that you  leave the course with ready-to-use workflows

 Project

As part of the course, you are expected to come with a specific project to work on during the course. Participants get more out of the workshop if they have applied questions or projects to work on. Make sure to have any needed ancillary data at hand by Sep. 18th. For example, if your project is to merge tagged animal tracks with satellite data, you should have the track data available. If you do not have a project to work on, please contact Cara for help

You will give a very brief verbal introduction to your project on the first day of class and present  a short (1 slide, 2 mins max) lightning talk during the last day. The presentation can be as simple as making a map or a time series for your region of interest if you are not currently working with satellite data. 

Time Commitment

Expect to spend about 3 hours watching 9 pre-recorded lectures prior to the start of the course. Each module is about 20 minutes long.  

Approximately a week before the in-person training there will be a pre-course, online call for Q & A about the course material and course logistics. 

The first 2 days of the in-person training will be devoted to questions and answers about the lectures, general discussions, software demos, tutorials, and one-on-one assistance with the projects.  On the third day participants will present short (2 minute) lightning talks  about their projects and what they learned in the course.  

Course Schedule 

Sept 1 - Sept 18, 2023  

  • Watch lectures

  • Go over the Panoply and ERDDAP tutorials

  • Decide on software track (R, Python, Matlab or ArcGIS). We have tutorials demonstrating accessing and manipulating satellite data in R, Python, Matlab and ArcGIs. Participants should choose the tutorials corresponding to the software application they use the most. Although participants are welcome to do so,  it is not expected that they go through all four sets of tutorials.

  • Install any needed libraries following the instructions in the "Pre-Course Preparation" section below and go over the pre-course materials listed in that section

  • Attend pre-course online call Links to an external site.on September 11 at 9 am AKST/10 am PST/1 pm EST. 

Sept 11, 2023 

Sept 18, 2023: In-person component 

Sept 19, 2023: In-person component 

Sept 20, 2023: In-person component 

  •  9 am -11 am AKST/10 am -12 pm PST/1 pm -3pm EST  Student presentations Links to an external site.   
    Each participant will give a brief (2 minute maximum) presentation on their project. 
    This presentation will be 1 slide only and is a required component of the course.  

Pre-Course Preparation

1. Setup Your Computer and Software

To get the most out of the course, ensure your computer is set up ahead of time and ready to go on at the start of class. Install the software well in advance of the course to leave time for addressing installation issues. NOAA employees, contractors, and affiliates using government-issued computers will likely require the approval and assistance of IT administrators to install software.

Panoply

You will use panoply for the assignment with NetCDF data. Please install Panoply, a NetCDF viewer developed by NASA. Panoply can be run on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.  

https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/ Links to an external site.

Setup the software you will use for your project

To cater to the needs of diverse students, we offer tutorials in R, Python and ArcGIS. The R materials are the most developed and will be the dominant software used in course demonstrations. We encourage you to choose software you are familiar with and basic knowledge of the software chosen is expected. 

ArcGIS Map/Pro

R and R Studio

Python
The examples presented in the course are written in Python 3 and provided as Jupyter Notebooks. Anaconda Links to an external site. installations have made it easier to install the required modules.  We recommend Miniconda Links to an external site., a lightweight version of Anaconda that takes up less disk space and resolves common environment configuration issues present in the full anaconda distribution. 

Matlab
Matlab is our least supported software track, but we do have some modules that show Matlab users how to access data from ERDDAP. 

2. Gather Files for Your Project

You are expected to come to the course with a project to work on and any information needed for the project. For example, if a project is to match up tagged animal tracks with satellite data, then track data (a list of dates, latitudes, and longitudes) would be required.

3. Log into Slack

Slack will be used as the platform to introduce yourself to your fellow classmates, ask/answer questions, share your progress on your project.

  1. Click on this invite link Links to an external site. to get access to the CoastWatch Slack workspace.
  2. We will use several channels. Click on Channel" -> "Manage" -> "Browse Channel" -> and click on channel names (troubleshooting-sep2023-alaska, introduction-sep2023-alaska) to join channels. 

All users should understand this is a public forum and anything submitted is open to public access.

NOAA Users should not use Google SSO to sign in. Please use your NOAA email along with a unique password.For NOAA employees and affiliates:

Visit slack.com Links to an external site. and establish an account.  

1) Users should create an account using their NOAA email as the username and create a unique password.  Do not sign in with your google credentials as shown in the figure on the right. (select the "continue with email" option)

2) Use the Slack web interface.  Do not install the Slack App/program on your Government computer.

3) Don't share screen while using Slack (close/hide the tab)

 

For those who can't access Slack:

For assistance during the course email Melanie: melanie.abecassis@noaa.gov or the CoastWatch helpdesk: coastwatch.info@noaa.gov .  For class related emails,  please include the keyword CWTRAINING in your subject.  

Course Content

Lectures

All lectures are available as pre-recorded presentations here: https://umd.instructure.com/courses/1336575/pages/all-lectures

Tutorials

All tutorials are self-paced. The full list of CoastWatch tutorials is available here: https://umd.instructure.com/courses/1336575/pages/tutorials-and-user-guides

All participants should go over the Panoply and ERDDAP tutorials. We have tutorials demonstrating accessing and manipulating satellite data in R, Python, Matlab and ArcGIs. Participants should choose the tutorials corresponding to the software application they use the most.  It is not expected that participants go through all four sets of tutorials.

How to get help ?

How to get help during or after the course?

Instructors

Meet your instructors

 

Public Domain This course content is offered under a Public Domain Links to an external site. license. Content in this course can be considered under this license unless otherwise noted.