The advancement of satellite microwave and infrared remote sensing has enabled unprecedented perception and cognition of earth surface brightness temperature, which is an important index of thermal state, dielectric property and radiative capability of solid, liquid, even gaseous or mixed objects. This session focuses on the fundamental physics and typical phenomena of brightness temperature changing with physical state of the object as well as its environment, providing information of global change, tectonic motion, and human activities. Example case-side topics on particular phenomena include but not limited to regional drought, forest fires, dust-haze, earthquake anomaly, volcano activity, landslide, oceanic motion, cyclone/hurricane/typhoons, urban heat island, and deforesting, and example model-side topics on parameter inversion from brightness temperature include physical temperature, soil moisture, solid structure, rock stress, water salty, water-gas mixture, surface roughness, and urban comfort, etc.