Radar through the monsoon

Clouds in the rains and dust in the Harmattan blind optical satellites. Sentinel-1 radar does not care.

Optical satellites such as Sentinel-2 and Landsat lose West Africa for weeks at a time, first under monsoon cloud, then under Saharan dust.

Sentinel-1 sends its own C-band radar signal and reads what comes back, day or night, through cloud. It is sensitive to surface moisture and standing water.

We combine it with optical images when skies are clear and with FAO’s WaPOR data, which maps water use down to 20 m in parts of Africa, then anchor the whole picture to our sensors on the ground.