THOR: A Versatile Foundation Model for Earth Observation Climate and Society Applications
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Abstract (arXiv)
Current Earth observation foundation models are architecturally rigid, struggle with heterogeneous sensors and are constrained to fixed patch sizes. This limits their deployment in real-world scenarios requiring flexible computeaccuracy trade-offs. We propose THOR, a "computeadaptive" foundation model that solves both input heterogeneity and deployment rigidity. THOR is the first architecture to unify data from Copernicus Sentinel-1, -2, and -3 (OLCI & SLSTR) satellites, processing their native 10 m to 1000 m resolutions in a single model. We pre-train THOR with a novel randomized patch and input image size strategy. This allows a single set of pre-trained weights to be deployed at inference with any patch size, enabling a dynamic trade-off between computational cost and feature resolution without retraining. We pre-train THOR on THOR Pretrain, a new, large-scale multi-sensor dataset and demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on downstream benchmarks, particularly in data-limited regimes like the PANGAEA 10% split, validating that THOR's flexible feature generation excels for diverse climate and society applications.
Key facts. Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 21 of its 37 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 22 Jan 2026.
Builds on
21 of 37 references.
References · 21
- 2020An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scalecited by 30,186
- 2021Masked Autoencoders Are Scalable Vision Learnerscited by 7,403
- 2023Self-Supervised Learning from Images with a Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecturecited by 1,039
- 2022SatMAE: Pre-training Transformers for Temporal and Multi-Spectral Satellite Imagerycited by 408
- 2022Scale-MAE: A Scale-Aware Masked Autoencoder for Multiscale Geospatial Representation Learningcited by 308
- 2023CROMA: Remote Sensing Representations with Contrastive Radar-Optical Masked Autoencoderscited by 169
- 2022FlexiViT: One Model for All Patch Sizescited by 152
- 2024Prithvi-EO-2.0: A Versatile Multi-Temporal Foundation Model for Earth Observation Applicationscited by 144
- 2022Self-supervised Learning in Remote Sensing: A Reviewcited by 137
- 2025TerraMind: Large-Scale Generative Multimodality for Earth Observationcited by 104
- 2024Mission Critical -- Satellite Data is a Distinct Modality in Machine Learningcited by 77
- 2024MMEarth: Exploring Multi-Modal Pretext Tasks For Geospatial Representation Learningcited by 77
9 more
- 2024AnySat: One Earth Observation Model for Many Resolutions, Scales, and Modalitiescited by 74
- 2024PANGAEA: A Global and Inclusive Benchmark for Geospatial Foundation Modelscited by 68
- 2025Towards a Unified Copernicus Foundation Model for Earth Visioncited by 53
- 2024Masked Autoencoders for Microscopy are Scalable Learners of Cellular Biologycited by 52
- 2023USat: A Unified Self-Supervised Encoder for Multi-Sensor Satellite Imagerycited by 28
- 2024Multi-Label Guided Soft Contrastive Learning for Efficient Earth Observation Pretrainingcited by 28
- 2025FlexiMo: A Flexible Remote Sensing Foundation Modelcited by 24
- 2023Domain-specific optimization and diverse evaluation of self-supervised models for histopathologycited by 11
- 2024On Pretraining Data Diversity for Self-Supervised Learningcited by 7
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 7.
7 papers.
- 2026TESSERA v2: Scaling Pixel-wise Earth Foundation Modelscited by 5
- 2026Any Model, Any Place, Any Time: Get Remote Sensing Foundation Model Embeddings On Demandcited by 4
- 2026SpectralEarth-FM: Bringing Hyperspectral Imagery into Multimodal Earth Observation Pretrainingcited by 2
- 2026Spatial Representation Learning Beyond Pixels: Unifying Raster Data and Vector Semantics for Human-Centric Geospatial Foundation Modelscited by 1
- 2026Multi-Modal, Multi-Temporal Geospatial Foundation Models Improve Global Above-Ground Biomass Estimationcited by 1
- 2026Now We Know? A Systematic Comparison of TerraMind and THORcited by 0
- 2026Earth Observation Foundation Models for Terrestrial Ecohydrology: From Representation Learning to Process Inferencecited by 0
- 2026Earth Observation Foundation Models for Terrestrial Ecohydrology: From Representation Learning to Process Inference15 Aug 2026
- 2026Multi-Modal, Multi-Temporal Geospatial Foundation Models Improve Global Above-Ground Biomass Estimation5 Aug 2026
- 2026Now We Know? A Systematic Comparison of TerraMind and THOR20 Jul 2026
- 2026TESSERA v2: Scaling Pixel-wise Earth Foundation Models4 Jul 2026
- 2026Spatial Representation Learning Beyond Pixels: Unifying Raster Data and Vector Semantics for Human-Centric Geospatial Foundation Models1 Jun 2026
- 2026SpectralEarth-FM: Bringing Hyperspectral Imagery into Multimodal Earth Observation Pretraining20 May 2026
- 2026Any Model, Any Place, Any Time: Get Remote Sensing Foundation Model Embeddings On Demand27 Feb 2026