SWOT Level 1B: Low-Rate Interferograms from 9 Doppler Beams

SWOT Level 1B data provides interferograms from nine distinct Doppler beams, corrected for on-board processing phase biases. Each netCDF-4 file contains gridded, spatially averaged measurements and geometry data for a full satellite swath per half-orbit. This dataset is produced by NASA's On Board Processor and corrected on the ground for use in advanced hydrological and oceanographic analysis.

Use Cases

• Calibrating radar backscatter (sigma-naught) models using the provided phase and amplitude corrections.
• Analyzing surface water elevation changes from the gridded, full-swath interferogram geometry.
• Validating higher-level SWOT data products using the low-rate, spatially averaged beam measurements.
• Studying radar cross-section variations across different land and water cover types.

Strengths

• Contains data from nine distinct Doppler beams, providing multiple measurement perspectives.
• Data is corrected for inherent phase biases from on-board processing, enhancing accuracy for ground analysis.
• Produced and hosted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a authoritative source.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all platforms.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without clear terms.
• Documentation appears sparse, with no detailed descriptions of the netCDF file structure or variables.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the SWOT satellite's radar, processed by the On Board Processor, and corrected on the ground.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:47:14.213857

Geography

Global, based on full satellite swath for each half orbit.