Satellite Radar (SAR)
Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar imagery from the Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) DAAC — NASA’s archive for SAR data. No API key required.
🛰️ Satellite
Sentinel-1
📐 Resolution
10m
⏱️ Update
Hourly
🌍 Regions
5
What We Monitor
We track Sentinel-1 GRD_HD (Ground Range Detected, High Density) scenes across 5 climate-critical regions:
| Region | Coordinates | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Arctic / Svalbard | 76°–80°N, 10°–25°E | Sea ice extent and dynamics |
| Greenland Ice Sheet | 64°–70°N, 50°–40°W | Ice sheet mass loss and glacier flow |
| Amazon Basin | 5°S–0°, 65°–55°W | Deforestation and flood mapping |
| Gulf Coast US | 28°–32°N, 95°–85°W | Hurricane damage and coastal flooding |
| Southeast Asia | 5°–15°N, 100°–110°E | Monsoon flooding and rice paddy monitoring |
Why SAR?
Synthetic Aperture Radar has unique advantages for climate monitoring:
- Works through clouds — unlike optical satellites, radar penetrates cloud cover
- Day and night — active sensor, doesn’t need sunlight
- Flood detection — water surfaces create distinctive radar backscatter
- Ice monitoring — distinguishes ice types, detects leads and ridges
- Deformation — InSAR measures ground movement at millimeter scale
- Forest change — cross-polarization (VH) correlates with biomass density
Acquisition Parameters
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Platform | Sentinel-1A (C-band SAR) |
| Mode | IW (Interferometric Wide) — 250 km swath |
| Processing | GRD_HD — 10m resolution, reduced speckle |
| Polarization | VV+VH (dual-pol) or HH+HV |
| Revisit | 12 days per satellite |
Data Fields
Each SAR scene observation includes:
- Scene ID — unique identifier for the acquisition
- Orbit & path/frame — precise orbital position
- Flight direction — ascending or descending pass
- Polarization — VV, HH, VV+VH, or HH+HV
- File size — stored as the observation value (in MB)
- Browse URL — thumbnail preview image
- Download URL — full resolution data (free, no auth)
This data source was discovered by Michael Isenbek and added via the TerraPulse admin interface. The ASF DAAC API requires no authentication for searches — a rare find for satellite data.
Data Source
The Alaska Satellite Facility DAAC is NASA’s archive for synthetic aperture radar data. Sentinel-1 is operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) under the Copernicus programme.