Wide-Area Analysis-Ready Radar Backscatter Composites

The benefits of composite products are well known to users data from optical sensors: cloud-cleared reflectance or index commonly used as an analysis-ready (ARD) layer. No analogous currently in widespread use that is based on spaceborne radar satellite backscatter signals. Here, we present a methodology produce wide-area ARD images. They build the existing heritage geometrically and radiometrically terrain corrected level 1 products. By combining measurements single region seen multiple tracks (incl. ascending descending), they able provide coverage with low latency. maps flattened estimates for slope effects. A mask layer annotating local quality resolution introduced. Multiple combined by weighting each observation its resolution, generating seamless suitable applications ranging wet snow monitoring land cover classification short-term change detection.