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Full catalog/sentinel-1-slc-wv
sentinel-1-slc-wv·dataset

Detailed open-ocean radar snapshots with phase (Copernicus)

Sentinel-1 Single Look Complex: WV
land ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. Small radar images over the open ocean that retain both signal strength and phase, so both amplitude and timing information are available for each pixel.

How it's made. Made by ESA Copernicus from Sentinel-1's C-band radar in Wave Mode, kept at Level-1 in the satellite's slant-range imaging geometry.

How & where you'd use it. A raw input used by researchers studying ocean surface waves and developing the higher-level ocean wind and wave products.

What's measured

SentinelCopernicusESASLCSARC-BandEUECWV

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2014-10-04 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90

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

This collection offers Sentinel-1 Level-1 Single Look Complex (SLC) products captured in Wave Mode (WV). Level-1 SLC products are images in the slant range by azimuth imaging plane, in the image plane of satellite data acquisition. Each image pixel is represented by a complex (I and Q) magnitude value and therefore contains both amplitude and phase information. Each I and Q value is 16 bits per pixel. The processing for all SLC products results in a single look in each dimension using the full available signal bandwidth. The imagery is geo-referenced using orbit and attitude data from the satellite. SLC images are produced in a zero Doppler geometry. This convention is common with the standard slant range products available from other SAR sensors.

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# 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=["sentinel-1-slc-wv"],   # 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 / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.