SAR sensors can image Earth’s surface regardless of cloud conditions or light availability. SAR data includes components of amplitude, which is the amount of radar backscatter returned to the sensor, and phase, which indicates the relative distance between the sensor and the surface reflecting the signal. This complex dataset has great potential for mapping surface processes and tracking landscape changes, but it can be hard to know how to work with and interpret the information it contains.

This webinar will include a basic introduction to SAR data collection, the datasets that are available from NASA's Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center (ASF DAAC), and the processing required to extract useful information from the data. We will focus on the Sentinel-1 dataset, discussing the implications of wavelength and polarization, differences between SLC and GRD products, and approaches for generating analysis-ready datasets from amplitude and phase data.