Ecosystem impacts of climate change are being routinely monitored using a growing array of satellite and aircraft remote sensing observations and associated advances in instrumentation. Climate related changes have been observed in vegetation composition and productivity, fire and insect disturbance regimes, and species distribution patterns, amongst others. As has been emphasized in previous ESA sessions (e.g. 2007 symposia on Advances in space-based observations for local to global ecological studies), the application of remote sensing in ecological studies is expanding particularly rapidly because it provides synoptic observations, across a range of spatial scales, which inform some of the principal questions ecologists studying environmental change are grappling with today. In this session, we will address novel applications of remote sensing observations and techniques, both retrospective and near real-time. The presentations in this session cover both marine and terrestrial processes and exemplify work at a wide range of spatial scales.