This talk provides an overview of some of the fundamentals of satellite remote sensing, ranging from how radiance is converted to reflectance and temperature from typical polar orbiting and geostationary platforms. Some of the concepts that will be discussed include spectral signatures, image classification, and spectral/spatial domain image transforms. Using selected examples, Dr. Christopherdiscusses how geophysical products are created from satellite data and why quality control flags are important. Dr. Christopher also discusses validation and inter-comparison strategies among satellite, surface and other data sets.