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Full catalog/SV12UBK
SV12UBK·v1·dataset

Airborne radar backscatter over farmland (SMAPVEX12)

SMAPVEX12 UAVSAR Incidence-Angle Normalized Backscatter Data V001
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level Not provided Binary
In plain English

What it measures. How strongly farmland and other ground bounced radar signals back to an aircraft, adjusted so the angle of the radar beam doesn't skew the comparison.

How it's made. Collected by the airborne UAVSAR radar during the 2012 SMAPVEX soil-moisture validation campaign, then normalized for incidence angle.

How & where you'd use it. Used in soil-moisture research, including validating satellite soil-moisture measurements, since radar backscatter relates to how wet the ground is.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › RADAR › RADAR BACKSCATTER

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2012-06-17 → 2012-07-17
  • Measured byG-III (UAVSAR)
  • Processing levelLevel Not provided
  • Spatial extent-98.67, 49.32, -97.62, 50.01
  • FormatsBinary
  • 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 Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) instrument. The data were collected as part of the Soil Moisture Active Passive Validation Experiment 2012 (SMAPVEX12).

Get the data

sv12ubk_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SV12UBK",
    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.