Welcome to the NOAA CoastWatch March 2024 Satellite Course! We are excited to have you in the class and look forward to helping you learn about satellite data and how to obtain and work with it!

Learning Outcomes

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

Course Logistics

This course will be conducted entirely online. Anyone is free to sign-up for the course, although it is targeted at participants in the Micronesia region and the live sessions are scheduled to align with their work day. All of the course materials are available online and participants will go through them at their own pace (including starting before the official start date of the course if desired), but there is a suggested list of modules to cover for each day of the course.

At the start of each day (9 am Chamorro Standard Time, 4 pm PDT) there will be a live session where we will preview the material participants should go over that day, discuss the previous day’s material, and answer any questions.

Participants should expect to spend about 1 hour/day in live sessions and at least 3-4 hours/day working on their own, going through the course material at their own pace and working on their project. Instructors will be available during the week to answer questions or help troubleshoot, on demand. The last day will be a 2-3 hour student presentation day (see below).

Time Zones

This course is targeted at participants in Chamorro Standard Time (UTC+10), and the live sessions are scheduled to align with their work day. However the instructors are based in four different times -Hawaii (UTC-10), US West Coast (UTC-7), US East Coast (UTC-4) and France (UTC+1), and there is not much overlapping work hours between these time zones!

Course Structure

Live Sessions | Mon-Thurs March 25-28, 9am Chamorro Standard Time
(Sun-Wed March 24-27, 4pm PDT)

The Day 1 live session will include an introduction to the course and the instructors. This will be an opportunity for participants to introduce themselves and briefly describe their class project. Attendance to this session on Day 1 is required. On Days 2 through 4, during the live session the instructors will review the previous day’s homework, preview the course activities for the self-study periods, and answer any common questions that have come up. Guest lectures and tools demos may also be included.

Self Study | Self-paced

Participants work at their own schedule and pace to complete the course content and work on their individual projects. The first few days feature video tutorials on satellite data, example software tutorials, and homework exercises. As the class progresses, participants will use the self study period to work on their individual project.

One-on-One Instructor Time

All participants will sign-up for a One-on-One session with an instructor. These sessions will allow participants the opportunity to discuss their project with an instructor and get assistance with choosing the best datasets to use, potential approaches for looking at the data, and other topics.

Student Presentations | Friday March 29, 9-11 am Chamorro Standard Time | Required
(Thursday March 28, 4-6 pm PDT)

On the last day, all participants will give a brief (2 minute maximum) presentation on their project and the progress they have made on it (1 slide only).

Project

As part of the course, participants are expected to come with a specific project to work on during the class. Participants get more out of the workshop if they have specific questions or projects to work on. Everyone will give a very brief intro to their project on the first day and will give a short (1 slide, 2 mins max) lightning talk during the last class session.

The project can be as simple as making a map or a time series for the region of interest, for those who are new to working with satellite data, or as complex as a participant feels comfortable with. Any ancillary data needed for the project should be ready before the course begins.

If you do not have a project to work on, please contact Cara (Cara.Wilson at noaa.gov) for help.

Pre-Course Setup

To get the most out of the course, participants should set up some things ahead of time and be ready to go when the course starts. In particular, install the software well in advance of the course and address installation issues before the course begins. NOAA employees, contractors, and affiliates using government-issued computers will likely require the approval and assistance of IT administrators to install software.

Contact Cara (Cara.Wilson at noaa.gov) with questions about software.

1. Gather Files for Your Project

Participants are encouraged 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.

2. Computer Setup and Software

Panoply

Panoply is a NetCDF viewer developed by NASA, which will be used for the assignment with NetCDF data. Panoply can be run on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/

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 participants to choose the software they are most familiar with and basic knowledge of the software chosen is expected. If participants don’t use any of these software packages, that is also okay, they can work with data directly from ERDDAP and can ignore the sections below.

R and R Studio

R 4.x is required for the R packages that will be used in the course.
The latest version of R Studio is required to participate in the R tutorials and examples presented in the course.
Run this R script to test and/or install required modules for workshop exercises:

R Script for required modules

Python

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

For details and instructions on setting up and testing your environment view the python code readme on github:

Setup and Test the Python Environment

ESRI ArcGIS

Course materials are designed for ArcGIS Pro v3.0.3
Users must have their own licensed version of ArcGIS and the Spatial Analyst Extension.

3. Log into Slack

Slack will be used to introduce participants to their fellow class mates, ask/answer questions, and share progress on projects.

1. Click on this invite link.to get access to the CoastWatch Slack workspace.

2. We will use several channels. Click the "Join Channel" button at the bottom center of the page the first time it is accessed.

Introductions/projects
troubleshooting
homework

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

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.

(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)

Course Syllabus

Live sessions will be held at 9am Chamorro time from March 25-29, 2024. The rest of the day will be spent going through the online materials on ones own. The links below outline what should be covered each day.

Day 1 - March 25, 2024

Day 2 - March 26, 2024

Day 3 - March 27, 2024

Day 4 - March 28, 2024

Day 5 - March 29, 2024

How to get help?

During the Class

During the course participants should post questions in Slack so that others in the class can benefit from the answers. Because we are using a free version of Slack, posts will disappear after 90 days, so participants should keep a copy of useful posts to Slack. Due to the differing time zones there will probably be a delay between when questions are posted and when the instructors respond.
We encourage participants to ask questions during the morning live sessions.
Make an appointment with an instructor. Appointment schedules are available on the Instructors page.

After the Class

Email the CoastWatch helpdesk: coastwatch.info@noaa.gov and please include the keyword CWTRAINING in your subject.

Instructors

Course Materials