All-weather radar satellite imagery (Copernicus)
What it measures. Radar images of the ground that work day or night and see straight through clouds, rain and darkness. Because radar bounces signals off surfaces, it reveals shape, texture and changes that ordinary cameras can miss.
How it's made. Gathered by ESA Copernicus from commercial radar satellites in the Copernicus Contributing Missions programme, which add radar coverage alongside Europe's own missions.
How & where you'd use it. Useful for spotting changes on land and at sea, tracking flooding or oil spills, managing emergencies, and studying ground movement. It is a raw data source that supports Copernicus monitoring services.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2011-05-31 → ongoing
- Spatial extent-179.95546, -81.05, 179.96101, 143.99498
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the Copernicus Contributing Missions (CCM) provide high-resolution radar imagery, unaffected by weather conditions or daylight. These datasets support Copernicus services in land and marine monitoring, change detection, emergency management, and geophysical observation. With its all-weather, day-and-night imaging capability, SAR is a vital source of spatial information for operational applications.
Get the data
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client
cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
collections=["ccm-sar"], # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60), # your area (W,S,E,N)
datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items()) # then read assets with rioxarray / xarrayBrowsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.
Official links
- Open data source Copernicus STAC