This book is not about the World Ocean. It is about our local sea, our local bay, our local estuary, and our local coastline, an environment we know and love, wherever we may live. This book is the first ever book on a new subdiscipline of remote sensing: regional satellite oceanography. Written by a Russian author, who is the leading international authority, this book is clear, simple, concise, and challenging.

Tapping into a resurgent interest in the regional perspective, the author addresses a number of difficult and oft-posed questions: What can the satellite actually 'see' when it is passing overhead? Is there a difference between the satellite-derived temperature of the sea and the temperature measured from a boat? How should the satellites be used to detect coastal zone pollution? Is the water clear enough - and clean enough - at our local beach?