Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is a microwave imaging satellite whose operation is led by ESA as part of their Earth Explorer missions. SMOS provides global observations on soil moisture and ocean salinity to improve our understanding of the water cycle and our weather forecasting ability.

Albedo is the ratio of the radiation (radiant energy or luminous energy) reflected by a surface to that incident on it. Snow and cloud surfaces have a high albedo, because most of the energy of the visible solar spectrum is reflected. Vegetation and ocean surfaces have low albedo, because they absorb a large fraction of the energy. Clouds are the chief cause of variations in the Earth's albedo.The land surface albedo is the ratio of the radiant flux reflected from Earth's surface to the incident flux. It is a key forcing parameter controlling the partitioning of radiative energy between the atmospheric and surface. In the case of vegetation, a reference surface is typically defined at or near the top of the canopy and must be specified explicitly. Surface albedo depends on natural variations, highly variable in space and time as a result of terrestrial properties changes, and with illumination conditions and human activities and is a sensitive indicator of environmental vulnerability.

Ice depth or thickness refers to the extent of the ice below the surface of the water. The term is also used in river and lake ice studies. Remote sensing techniques (particularly radar and microwave) have been used to estimate ice thickness as have recently declassified submarine measurements of polar ice thickness.

Jason-1 (Joint Altimetry Satellite Oceanography Network) Mission. Jason is the name of a joint CNES/NASA oceanography mission series with the objective to monitor global ocean circulation, discover the tie between the oceans and atmosphere, improve global climate predictions, and to monitor events such as El Nino conditions and ocean eddies. The oceanography mission series is considered a cornerstone of GCOS (Global Ocean Observing System), a concept advocated by WMO (World Meteorological Organization), IOC (Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the UNESCO), UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program), and ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions).

GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) satellites mapped detailed measurements of the global gravitational fields with unprecedented precision. Data from GRACE satellites covered wide application areas. GRACE consists of two satellites (A, B) serving one mission.

Gridded product containing a spatial interpolation of the point product onto a uniform grid of elevation and uncertainty. The gridded product is published on a monthly basis with one product per region on a 2km grid in polar stereographic coordinates. The monthly product contains 3 months of data on a rolling basis each month and uses the Thematic point product as its input. For example, the January 2020 gridded product will contain point data for a window starting on 1st December 2019 and ending on 29th February 2020.

Greenland Geothermal Heat Flow Database and Map