Global Monthly and Seasonal Urban and Land Backscatter Time Series, 1993-2020

The Global Monthly and Seasonal Urban and Land Backscatter Time Series, 1993-2020, is a multi-sensor, multi-decadal, data set of global microwave backscatter, for 1993 to 2020. It assembles data from C-band sensors onboard the European Remote Sensing Satellites (ERS-1 and ERS-2) covering 1993-2000, Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) onboard EUMETSAT satellites for 2007-2020, and the Ku-band sensor onboard the QuikSCAT satellite for 1999-2009, onto a common spatial grid (0.05 degree latitude /longitude resolution) and time step (both monthly and seasonal). Data are provided for all land (except high latitudes and islands), and for urban grid cells, based on a specific masking that removes grid cells with > 50% open water or < 20% built land. The all-land data allows users to choose and evaluate other urban masks. There is an offset between C-band and Ku-band backscatter from both vegetated and urban surfaces that is not spatially constant. There is a strong linear correlation (overall R-squared value = 0.69) between 2015 ASCAT urban backscatter and a continental-scale gridded product of building volume, across 8,450 urban grid cells (0.05 degree resolution) from large cities in Europe, China, and the United States.