Sentinel 3A Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (SRAL) Level 1B-S data

This dataset contains level 1b (L1B-S) altimetry data from the Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (SRAL) aboard the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel 3A Satellite. Sentinel 3A was launched on the 16th of February 2016. These data are fully SAR-processed and calibrated High-Resolution (HR) complex echoes arranged in stacks after slant range correction and prior to echo multi-look (multi-look processing reduces noise by averaging of adjacent pixels, and thereby reduces the standard deviation of the noise level).

The L1B-S HR product contains information from Doppler beams data. Hence, it has only been defined for the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) processing chain. The Doppler beams associated with a given surface location (also called stack data) are formed through the selection of all the beams that illuminate a given surface location, and that contribute to each L1B HR waveform. Beams are the result of applying Doppler processing to the waveform bursts, which allows division of the conventional altimeter footprint into a certain number of stripes, thus creating a Delay Doppler Map (DDM). With this, contributions coming from different stripes can be identified and collected separately. When all the contributions from different bursts are collected, a stack is formed. The stack waveforms are provided in In-phase (I) and Quadrature-phase (I/Q) samples (complex waveforms) in the frequency domain. Apart from the Doppler processing, the beams of a stack have also been fully calibrated and range aligned. The L1B-S also includes characterisation parameters about the stack itself. The time tag is given at each surface location (defined throughout the L1 processing chain).

Data are provided by ESA and are made available via CEDA to any registered user.

Date (Publication): 2021-07-01T16:06:40

Date (Creation): 2021-07-01T16:06:40

Citation identifier: https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/41526384c3dd463eb0fc0117b87d08f6

Citation identifier: NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis / 41526384c3dd463eb0fc0117b87d08f6

Point of contact

Organisation name	Electronic mail address	Role
Copernicus	unknown	Author
European Space Agency (ESA)	unknown	Author
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	Custodian
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	Distributor
European Space Agency (ESA)	unknown	Principal investigator
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	pointofContact
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	Publisher

Maintenance and update frequency: Continual

Update scope: Dataset

Keywords

Sentinel
Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter
SRAL
SAR
Sentinel3

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

orthoimagery

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Public data: access to these data is available to both registered and non-registered users.

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Under the following licence https://sentinel.esa.int/documents/247904/690755/Sentinel_Data_Legal_Notice, appropriate use of these data may fall under any use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.

Spatial representation type: Grid

Language: English

Topic category

Imagery base maps earth cover

Begin date: 2018-02-01T00:00:00

Unique resource identifier: WGS 84

Distribution format

Name	Version
Data are provided by ESA in zipped SAFE format.

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis		support@ceda.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/41526384c3dd463eb0fc0117b87d08f6	CEDA Data Catalogue Page

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://data.ceda.ac.uk/neodc/sentinel3a/data/SRAL/L1_SRA_BS_/	DOWNLOAD

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/toolboxes/sentinel-3	Sentinel 3 Toolbox (S3TBX)

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/user-guides/sentinel-3-altimetry	Sentinel 3 Altimetry User Guide

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Statement: Data collected and prepared by European Space Agency (ESA). Downloaded from the Sentinel hubs for use by the CEDA community.

Metadata

File identifier: 41526384c3dd463eb0fc0117b87d08f6 XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Parent identifier: 0bcc2457250548abb51a90f96772c374
0bcc2457250548abb51a90f96772c374

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2025-08-11T02:23:01

Metadata standard name: UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version: 2.3

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis		support@ceda.ac.uk	Point of contact

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