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Full catalog/SV12PLBK
SV12PLBK·v1·dataset

How strongly the ground bounces radar, soil-moisture field test

SMAPVEX12 PALS Backscatter Data V001
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level Not provided ASCII
In plain English

What it measures. Records of how strongly the ground bounces back radar signals (backscatter), which relates to how wet the soil is.

How it's made. Collected by the PALS L-band radar instrument flown on an aircraft during the 2012 SMAPVEX field experiment.

How & where you'd use it. Gathered to test and validate satellite soil-moisture measurements; mainly a research and calibration dataset rather than a general-purpose map.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › RADAR › RADAR BACKSCATTER

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2012-06-07 → 2012-07-19
  • Measured byAIRCRAFT (PALS)
  • Processing levelLevel Not provided
  • Spatial extent-98.51, 49.44, -97.85, 49.96
  • FormatsASCII
  • 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

This data set contains backscatter data obtained by the Passive Active L-band System (PALS) microwave aircraft instrument as part of the Soil Moisture Active Passive Validation Experiment 2012 (SMAPVEX12).

Get the data

sv12plbk_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SV12PLBK",
    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.