Description
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) allows researchers to observe Earth's surface both day and night and through most weather conditions, making it an ideal sensor to support a wide range of science and applications. Additionally, unique capabilities of SAR include: its ability to penetrate various mediums (such as vegetation, snow, and soil); its ability to measure surface deformation and small movements on the order of centimeters; and its sensitivity to structure and to moisture content. These capabilities are valuable for monitoring vegetation structure and land use, detecting surface deformation and movement in land (e.g., earthquakes, landslides) and ice (e.g., glacier movement), flooding, and soil moisture, to name a few.
Historical and operational SAR data have been used to support numerous science and applications questions and needs. However, upcoming SAR satellite sensors, such as NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) and Biomass, will enhance these capabilities with their unique observing frequencies and spatial and temporal resolutions.
This webinar provides an introduction to SAR, including interferometric SAR (InSAR), as well as a review of the characteristics of historical, current, and upcoming SAR satellite data. It also explores the type of applications that each sensor can best address. Additionally, this webinar discusses online sources of openly available SAR data, along with tools, software, and other resources to understand, explore, and facilitate the analysis of such data.