Introduction to the special issue

This Special Issue of the European Journal of Remote Sensing is devoted to the publication of a selection of papers presented at the Microwave Specialist Symposium on Microwave Remote Sensing 2010 of the Earth, Oceans, Ice, and Atmosphere of the URSI Commission F. The Symposium was intended for specialists working with theoretical, experimental or application aspects of active and passive microwave remote sensing of the Earth, Oceans, Ice, and Atmosphere. The focus has been on scientific aspects of the microwave interaction with land surfaces and atmosphere and its implications for the interpretation of results obtained from satellite sensors. The selection of papers presented in this Special Issue is reasonably representative of the different topics covered by the meeting. We have, in fact, papers related to atmosphere investigations, to precipitation monitoring, to retrieval of soil, snow and vegetation parameters with both active and passive microwave sensors at different frequencies. Some papers also dealt with the electromagnetic modelling of the surfaces.