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Full catalog/NSIDC-0808
NSIDC-0808·v1·dataset

Radar echo strength over polar regions (ERS)

ERS SIR-Enhanced EASE-Grid 2.0 Radar Backscatter V001
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 1C netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Records how strongly radar signals bounce back off the surface (radar backscatter) over polar and near-global regions, mapped onto a grid at both 25 km and a sharper 6.25 km spacing.

How it's made. Derived from the C-band scatterometer on the ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites between 1992 and 2001, and processed into both standard and enhanced-resolution gridded images.

How & where you'd use it. Supports studies of land, ice, and frozen-ground processes such as surface freeze and thaw, snow and ice structure, and moisture changes.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › RADAR › SIGMA NAUGHT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1992-01-01 → 2001-02-05
  • Measured byERS-1 (AMI) · ERS-2 (AMI)
  • Processing levelLevel 1C
  • Spatial extent-180, -85.04457, 180, 85.04457
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

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

The ERS SIR-Enhanced product (NSIDC-0808) provides normalized radar cross section (σ⁰, Sigma0) or radar backscatter data derived from the European Space Agency (ESA) Earth Remote Sensing satellite series (ERS-1 and ERS-2) Active Microwave Instrument (AMI) in scatterometer-mode (ESCAT) during satellite overpasses between January 1992 and January 2001. The ESCAT instrument is a C-band (5.3 GHz) radar that collects σ⁰ at a vertical transmit–vertical receive (VV) polarization. NSIDC-0808 includes both conventionally gridded (GRD) and enhanced-resolution (SIR) backscatter images gridded to EASE-Grid 2.0 azimuthal and cylindrical projections (Brodzik et al., 2012; Brodzik et al., 2014) at two grid spacings (25 km and 6.25 km). The data set provides near-global coverage and supports studies of land, ice, and cryospheric surface processes sensitive to σ⁰ , including surface freeze/thaw state, snow and ice structure, and moisture variability.

Get the data

nsidc-0808_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NSIDC-0808",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.