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Full catalog/SEASAT_L1_SAR
SEASAT_L1_SAR·v1·dataset

Raw radar that sees through clouds (Seasat, 1978)

Seasat Level 1 Synthetic Aperture Radar Products
ocean NASA ASF Level 1 GeoTIFFHDF5XMLKML
In plain English

What it measures. Radar images of Earth's surface from 1978, captured by a sensor that can see through clouds and darkness because it uses its own radio signals instead of sunlight.

How it's made. Collected by the short-lived Seasat satellite's synthetic aperture radar and, decades later, rebuilt by NASA from the original raw signal tapes into modern, georeferenced digital images.

How & where you'd use it. A rare early radar record useful for historical comparisons of coastlines, ice, and land, and as a baseline for studying long-term change.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN WINDSOCEANS › SEA SURFACE TOPOGRAPHYOCEANS › OCEAN WAVESOCEANS › SEA ICEBIOSPHERE › ECOSYSTEMS › TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS › FORESTSLAND SURFACE › GEOMORPHIC LANDFORMS/PROCESSES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1978-07-04 → 1978-10-12
  • Measured bySEASAT 1 (SAR)
  • Processing levelLevel 1
  • FormatsGeoTIFF, HDF5, XML, KML, Text File
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Watch sea-surface temperature and marine heatwaves
  • Spot algal blooms and ocean-colour shifts
  • Support fisheries and coastal monitoring
Official description

Launched by NASA in 1978, the Seasat satellite’s primary mission was to observe oceans using NASA’s first synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor. Seasat was not equipped with an onboard recorder, so in order to collect data during the mission, three U.S. and two international ground stations downlinked data from the satellite in real time: Fairbanks, Alaska; Goldstone, California; Merritt Island, Florida; Shoe Cove, Newfoundland; and Oakhanger, United Kingdom. Originally, Seasat SAR data were optically processed into survey data products available on 70 mm film. Approximately 10 percent of the total Seasat SAR dataset was digitally processed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1978 to 1982. In 2013, the Alaska Satellite Facility DAAC processed and created a digital archive of focused SAR products from data collected by Seasat. Starting with raw signal data on tapes, the Seasat data were successively (1) captured to disk, (2) validated and byte-aligned, (3) decoded, (4) cleaned of bit errors and discontinuities, (5) focused into single look complex imagery, (6) processed into georeferenced ground range products. The products created are available in this collection in both HDF-5 and GeoTiff format.

Get the data

seasat_l1_sar_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SEASAT_L1_SAR",
    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 ASF
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.