If we look back through time,

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there's always been this desire to get a higher picture.

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We continued to go higher and higher

to get a better and better picture

to understand what's going on.

I'm Keith Masback.

I've been working in the remote sensing field

for over 30 years.

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Today I'm going to share with you just a few tips and tricks

on how to look at satellite imagery.

The coordinates are in the description

if you want to follow along.

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So the first thing I'd say

is that you never want to look at just one image.

You want to understand context,

and you want to understand a place over time

because that's really where you're going to start

to be able to pull some real observations.

The benefit of looking at someplace over time

is you're being able to see patterns.

You're being able to see progression.

Why don't we look at some examples in nature.

One rule of thumb in the imagery analysis business

is mother nature doesn't make a lot of straight lines.

So your eyes, an imagery analyst

immediately goes to anything that looks perfectly straight.

Another example is deforestation.

Again, that's man-made activity

that comes really, really clear on remote sensing,

especially from space.

Men tends to cut things in very clear patterns.

So you see sort of football field size pieces

disappear at a time.

It's very easy to see despite whatever a country

or a region or a company might be saying they're doing,

it's pretty easy to call them out.

So one case I might point to is what's going on

in the Arctic and the retreat of glaciers.

You can start to see how they're depositing sediment

and how the sediment is being increasingly exposed

to the sun instead of the very white ice

reflecting the sun's rays,

that sediment is actually collecting heat

and contributing in turn

to a faster retreat of those glaciers.

Next let's turn to man-made structures,

man-made activity that certainly important

in my background is looking at military activity.

Military people tend to like order.

They like to do things repeatedly.

During the cold war,

we would watch the Soviet rigidly adhere to doctrine.

They would always assemble their forces in the same way.

And in fact, today, even the Russians still tend to do that.

We're seeing very similar patterns

to what we saw when they invaded Crimea several years ago,

their signature pieces of equipment,

their signature activity,

the way they rail load and move their forces,

the way they're parked,

the way they're aligned.

These patterns are very easy to spot.

Another sort of sad example of being able

to use remote sensing in a very powerful way

was in Darfur while the government

was claiming that nothing was going on,

they were very effectively

keeping the press out of the country,

but Amnesty International and other organizations

were able to bear witness from above.

So again, through this idea of looking at images over time,

non-governmental organizations and governments

were able to look from above

and see wholesale that villages were razed and burned.

And that was clear indication that a genocide was underway.

An interesting enigma for national security,

for human rights is taking a look at Korea.

When we get a defector who comes across

and wants to talk about the reeducation camps,

we can show them images from space

and they can share with us, What are they seeing?

How is the camp laid out?

What happens where?

And once we can understand that

from someone who's been there,

that allows us to understand that pattern,

and then we can look in other parts of the country

and identify, unfortunately, the spread of these facilities.

Let's talk a little bit about how we can use remote sensing

to understand the activity of individuals.

Now, when we're talking about

looking at the earth from space,

we're not looking at individual people.

We can see the impact of lots of people over time.

Something like Burning Man

is absolutely easy to spot from space.

It has a very clear pattern it's replicated every year,

and you can actually watch over time how Burning Man

has grown and changed from space.

Whether you're looking out the window of an airplane,

or you're looking at a satellite image,

try to look at it in a different way,

try to look at patterns you might not have noticed before.

Look for what you don't see.

Is there something missing

that you would expect to see there?

Just try and look with a different eye

and I think you'll be pretty surprised.