Description
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has the capability to observe the Earth's surface both day and night and through most weather conditions, making it an ideal sensor to support a wide range of science and applications. Additionally, unique capabilities of SAR include its ability to penetrate various mediums (such as vegetation, snow, and soil), measure surface deformation and small movement on the order of centimeters, and its sensitivity to structure and to moisture content. These capabilities are valuable for monitoring vegetation structure and land use, detecting surface deformation and movement in land (e.g., earthquakes, landslides) and ice (e.g., glacier movement), flooding, and soil moisture, to name a few.
Historical and operational SAR data have been used to support numerous science and applications questions and needs. However, upcoming SAR satellite sensors, such as NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) and Biomass, will enhance these capabilities with their unique observing frequencies and spatial and temporal resolutions.
This online webinar will provide an introduction to SAR, including interferometric SAR (InSAR), as well as a review of the characteristics of historical, current, and upcoming openly available SAR satellite data. It will also explore the type of applications that each sensor can best address. Additionally, this webinar will discuss online sources of openly available SAR data, along with tools, software, and other resources to understand, explore, and facilitate the analysis of SAR data.
Access the Agenda (PDF, 0.7 MB)
Prerequisites
- Fundamentals of Remote Sensing
- Participants should create a NASA Earthdata account prior to the start of the training by visiting the Earthdata Login sign up page.
Objectives
By the end of this training attendees will be able to:
- Recognize basic features and functionality of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
- Evaluate SAR sensor characteristics for addressing different science questions and application areas
- Interpret the information content in SAR images to distinguish different features (e.g., vegetation, water, inundation) detected by the sensor
- Evaluate creation of an interferogram through interferometric SAR (InSAR)
- Interpret an interferogram to measure surface deformation and small movements
- Compare and contrast the capabilities of historic, current, and upcoming SAR data
- Access and visualize SAR data for a given location and time
Target Audience
Remote sensing end users, geospatial analysts, academics and students, managers from local, state, federal government, and non-governmental organizations.
Course Format
- Three, 2-hour parts
- Each part includes a 30-min Q&A session.
How to register
Watch the recordings at https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/trainings/introduction-synthetic-aperture-radar-sar-its-applications?utm_source=social&utm_medium=ext&utm_campaign=SAR2024