Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/sentinel-1-rtc
sentinel-1-rtc·dataset

Analysis-ready radar backscatter, terrain-corrected (Sentinel-1)

Sentinel 1 Radiometrically Terrain Corrected (RTC)
atmosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active COG
In plain English

What it measures. It records how much radar energy bounces back from the ground (the "backscatter"), captured by a kind of radar that sees through clouds and works at night. The values are adjusted so that flat land and steep slopes can be compared fairly, and so readings from different satellites or passes mean the same thing.

How it's made. It is built from C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images taken by the two Sentinel-1 satellites, then radiometrically terrain-corrected to flatten out distortions from slopes and make the data ready to analyze right away.

How & where you'd use it. Because the radar sees through cloud and darkness, it is useful for mapping floods, monitoring crops and soil, tracking deforestation, and watching the slow movement of land and ice.

What's measured

ESACopernicusSentinelC-BandSARRTCSENTINEL-1ASENTINEL-1BSENTINEL-1C

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2014-10-10 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsCOG

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The Sentinel-1 mission is a constellation of two polar-orbiting satellites, operating day and night performing C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging. The Sentinel-1 Radiometrically Terrain Corrected (RTC) data in this collection is a radiometrically terrain corrected product derived from the Ground Range Detected (GRD) Level-1 products produced by the European Space Agency. The RTC processing is performed by Catalyst. Radiometric Terrain Correction accounts for terrain variations that affect both the position of a given point on the Earth's surface and the brightness of the radar return, as expressed in radar geometry. Without treatment, the hill-slope modulations of the radiometry threaten to overwhelm weaker thematic land cover-induced backscatter differences. Additionally, comparison of backscatter from multiple satellites, modes, or tracks loses meaning. A Planetary Computer account is required to retrieve SAS tokens to read the RTC data. See the documentation for more information. Methodology The Sentinel-1 GRD product is converted to calibrated intensity using the conversion algorithm described in the ESA technical note ESA-EOPG-CSCOP-TN-0002, Radiometric Calibration of S-1 Level-1 Products Generated by the S-1 IPF. The flat earth calibration values for gamma correction (i.e. perpendicular to the radar line of sight) are extracted from the GRD metadata. The calibration coefficients are applied as a two-dimensional correction in range (by sample number) and azimuth (by

Get the data

planetary_computer_access.py
# Microsoft Planetary Computer — open STAC, free anonymous asset signing
import planetary_computer, pystac_client

cat = pystac_client.Client.open("https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/api/stac/v1",
                                modifier=planetary_computer.sign_inplace)
items = cat.search(
    collections=["sentinel-1-rtc"],
    bbox=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),   # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
).item_collection()
On the Microsoft Planetary Computer — open STAC; the planetary-computer package signs S3 asset URLs for free (no account).