Seeing through the clouds

BY SENSING faint microwave emissions, satellites can now gauge the
temperature of the surface of the oceans even when it’s cloudy. Sea surface
temperatures play a crucial role in climate, but clouds block the infrared
radiation on which most weather satellites rely. Although they can be blocked by
rain, microwave emissions are not affected by cloud (Science, vol 288,
p 847). “It’s opening the door to a lot of new areas in oceanography,” says
Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in California. “The most exciting
application is monitoring hurricanes,” Wentz says, because the intensity of
hurricanes depends on sea…