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SAR imagery (ICEYE)

Also: SAR

At a glance

Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites that see through cloud. We use them for post-storm flood extent and ground-truth imagery.

Deep dive

sar integrates the ICEYE open-data feed (CC-BY-4.0) and matches passes to archived storm episodes. SAR imaging has a few properties worth knowing:

  • All-weather, day/night — it's active microwave, not passive optical.
  • Speckle — the grainy texture is coherent interference, not noise per se.
  • Flood signature — smooth water surfaces reflect away from the sensor, showing as dark in radar brightness.
  • Urban corner reflectors — buildings light up brightly due to double-bounce off walls/streets.

ICEYE scenes land 24–72 h after a disaster-triggered tasking. The historical storms archive joins them to storm episodes with a generous time window.