There is an unprecedented array of new satellite technologies with capabilities for advancing our understanding of ecological processes and the changing composition of the Earth’s biosphere at scales from local plots to the whole planet. We identified 48 instruments and 13 platforms with multiple instruments that are of broad interest to the environmental sciences that either collected data in the 2000s, were recently launched, or are planned for launch in this decade. We have restricted our review to instruments that primarily observe terrestrial landscapes or coastal margins and are available under free and open data policies. We focused on imagers that passively measure wavelengths in the reflected solar and emitted thermal spectrum. The suite of instruments we describe measure land surface characteristics, including land cover, but provide a more detailed monitoring of ecosystems, plant communities, and even some species then possible from historic sensors. The newer instruments have potential to greatly improve our understanding of ecosystem functional relationships among plant traits like leaf mass area (LMA), total nitrogen content, and leaf area index (LAI). They provide new information on physiological processes related to photosynthesis, transpiration and respiration, and stress detection, including capabilities to measure key plant and soil biophysical properties. These include canopy and soil temperature and emissivity, chlorophyll fluorescence, and biogeochemical contents like photosynthetic pigments (e.g., chlorophylls, carotenoids, and phycobiliproteins from cyanobacteria), water, cellulose, lignin, and nitrogen in foliar proteins. These data will enable us to quantify and characterize various soil properties such as iron content, several types of soil clays, organic matter, and other components. Most of these satellites are in low Earth orbit (LEO), but we include a few in geostationary orbit (GEO) because of their potential to measure plant physiological traits over diurnal periods, improving estimates of water and carbon budgets. We also include a few spaceborne active LiDAR and radar imagers designed for quantifying surface topography, changes in surface structure, and 3-dimensional canopy properties such as height, area, vertical profiles, and gap structure. We provide a description of each instrument and tables to summarize their characteristics. Lastly, we suggest instrument synergies that are likely to yield improved results when data are combined.

中文翻译：

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生态应用地球观测的当前和近期进展

前所未有的一系列新卫星技术能够促进我们对从局部地块到整个地球的生态过程和地球生物圈不断变化的组成的理解。我们确定了 48 种仪器和 13 个平台，其中包含多种仪器，这些仪器对环境科学具有广泛的兴趣，这些仪器要么在 2000 年代收集数据，要么最近推出，要么计划在这十年推出。我们将审查限制在主要观察陆地景观或沿海边缘的仪器上，并且在免费和开放数据政策下可用。我们专注于被动测量反射太阳和发射热光谱中波长的成像器。我们描述的这套仪器测量地表特征，包括土地覆盖，但可以提供对生态系统、植物群落甚至某些物种的更详细监测，而这些监测可能是历史传感器提供的。较新的仪器有可能大大提高我们对叶质量面积 (LMA)、总氮含量和叶面积指数 (LAI) 等植物性状之间生态系统功能关系的理解。它们提供了与光合作用、蒸腾作用和呼吸作用以及压力检测相关的生理过程的新信息，包括测量关键植物和土壤生物物理特性的能力。这些包括冠层和土壤温度和发射率、叶绿素荧光和生物地球化学成分，如光合色素（例如，叶绿素、类胡萝卜素和来自蓝细菌的藻胆蛋白）、水、纤维素、木质素和叶面蛋白质中的氮。这些数据将使我们能够量化和表征各种土壤特性，例如铁含量、几种类型的土壤粘土、有机质和其他成分。这些卫星中的大多数都在低地球轨道 (LEO) 上，但我们包括一些在地球静止轨道 (GEO) 上的卫星，因为它们有可能测量昼夜期间的植物生理特征，从而改进对水和碳预算的估计。我们还包括一些星载主动 LiDAR 和雷达成像仪，用于量化表面地形、表面结构变化和 3 维树冠属性，如高度、面积、垂直剖面和间隙结构。我们提供了每个工具的描述和表格来总结它们的特性。最后，我们建议在合并数据时可能产生改进结果的工具协同作用。