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Full catalog/sentinel-3-sr-1-sra-a-ntc
sentinel-3-sr-1-sra-a-ntc·dataset

Raw radar altimeter echoes, fully calibrated (Copernicus)

Sentinel-3 SRAL Radar Altimetry L-1A (NTC)
ocean ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. Geo-located bursts of radar echoes from the satellite's altimeter, with all calibrations applied but surface heights not yet derived.

How it's made. Captured by the SRAL radar altimeter on ESA Copernicus' Sentinel-3 satellites as a Level-1A product, in a fully quality-checked version released later than the fast feed.

How & where you'd use it. An early-stage input rather than a usable map; scientists use it to reprocess altimetry into accurate ocean, lake, and ice height measurements.

What's measured

SentinelCopernicusESASatelliteRadarAltimetryEUEC

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2016-03-01 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90

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

This Collection provides Sentinel-3 SRAL Level-1A products, which contains geo-located bursts of echoes with all calibrations applied.

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-3-sr-1-sra-a-ntc"],   # 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.