ASF's RTC dataset provides worldwide terrestrial coverage, excluding polar and high-latitude regions. The product removes topographic effects from radiometry and corrects layover and shadow for topographic analysis. It was created by the Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) and last updated in April 2011.
Use Cases
- Analyze radiometry with topographic effects removed for consistent backscatter comparison across slopes.
- Study terrain topography using data corrected for radar layover and shadow artifacts.
- Fuse this SAR product with optical Landsat 8 data for multimodal land cover classification.
- Monitor land surface changes over time using the global, terrain-corrected coverage.
Strengths
- Provides global terrestrial coverage for consistent analysis.
- Data is radiometrically and terrain corrected, reducing geometric distortions.
- Designed for compatibility with optical Landsat 8 imagery.
Limitations
- Coverage excludes Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and Asia north of 60° latitude.
- The last known update was in 2011, indicating potentially stale data for recent studies.
- Specific technical details like resolution, row count, and file size are unknown.
Provenance
- Source
- Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) via NASA Earthdata.
- Collection Method
- Derived from ALOS PALSAR satellite data, processed with Radiometric Terrain Correction (RTC).
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Worldwide terrestrial coverage, excluding Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and Asia north of 60 degrees latitude.