Radar data

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images can provide much useful information about both land and marine environments. Currently NEODAAS download and archive Wide Swath medium resolution images from ESA's Envisat ASAR. This is a C-band microwave instrument with a wavelength of approximately 5.6 cm. The Wide Swath medium resolution images can have a swath width of approximately 400 km and resolution of approximately 150 m.

From these data products, using the BOOST SAR tool, we can produce the following single acquisition quicklook products:

Mapped ASAR image without annotation Mapped ASAR image with annotation Mapped ASAR image and with land mask

1. Images of mapped ASAR intensity of specific regions of interest, without annotation, with annotation and with land masks applied. Intensity images of marine environments are useful for detecting water fronts, ships and their wakes and oil spills.

ASAR image prior to ship detection ASAR image after ship detection

2. Using the ship detection algorithm we can create images highlighting detected ships within a region of interest.

ASAR image with wind directions drawn on Wind field image from ASAR data

3. If the wind direction can be detected, then we can create wind field images.


Other image products that can be made available:

  • Oil slick detection images

All of the above products can be supplied as either jpg/png/bmp formats. The following per-pixel, unmapped products can be provided in NetCDF format:

  1. Image intensity
  2. Latitude / Longitude arrays
  3. σ0 (Normalised radar cross section) array
  4. Incidence angle array