Earthdata Forum

Hi all,

Recently, I ordered the RTC products of the HyP3 service over my study site from both Sentinel-1 SLC and GRD datasets on all amplitude, decibel, and power scales. When I checked the "JPG" files, I found several issues in some products. You can take a look at them in the attachment.
Do you think these issues are associated with the acquisition style of Sentinel-1 or any surface noises? Or the RTC progress could result in these issues! I believe these issues will affect any spatiotemporal analysis we want to use for the "Gamma0" or "Sigma0" SAR radiometry on any scale. So, I would appreciate your comments on fixing these issues in my research.

Sincerely,
Sayyed

These signatures are indicative of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI).
This is a common problem in SAR acquisitions, and often occurs near airports or other installations that emit strong radio/radar signals. The acquisition data itself is impacted; it's not an issue introduced during RTC.

Unfortunately, it looks like most acquisitions over the ascending footprint you posted are impacted by RFI. You might have better luck with the descending acquisitions; some of them are also impacted, but not as many.

Try this search for the descending scenes over the same area:
https://search.asf.alaska.edu/#/?start=2017-01-01T09:00:00Z&end=2020-12-02T08:59:59Z&maxResults=1000&resultsLoaded=true&flightDirs=Descending&beamModes=IW&zoom=7.008&center=55.258,29.028&productTypes=GRD_HD,SLC&path=64-64&frame=488-488

There are a number of papers in the literature presenting methods for mitigation, but it's a difficult issue to solve. This paper has a good summary of the problem: https://www.ursi.org/proceedings/procGA17/papers/Paper_EFGHJ1-4(2957).pdf

Hi,

Thank you so much for your message. It would be beneficial.
Since I am using the SAR Radiometry (Gamma0) in all amplitude, decibel, and power scales for a spatiotemporal analysis using machine learning algorithms, this issue creates an issue in the results. Still, I am thinking about how I can handle it.

Interestingly, as you said, the power network and stations may induct this issue in the SAR acquisitions, but I am not sure.

Sincerely,
Sayyed