The influence of Sentinel-1 SAR sub-swath on the recorded backscatter time-series over managed hemiboreal forests

Abstract The view angle range of Sentinel-1 SAR in the Interferometric Wide swath (IW) measurement mode is 29.1° – 46.0°. The dependence of backscatter on the arbitrary local incidence angle is usually corrected using a linear regression model where the incidence angle is a predictor variable. We analysed the whole time series of Sentinel-1 SAR VV-polarised backscatter over the flat 15×15 km test site in Laeva, Estonia (26° 26′ 43″ E; 58° 31′ 56″ N). Time series containing measurements from three different orbits were constructed for 3,159 stands from nighttime data and for 1,105 stands from daytime data. We can confirm that daytime backscatter is systematically greater than nighttime backscatter. We found a significant deviation from linearity in the backscatter dependence on local incidence angle. The empirical finding may be caused by the microwave scattering dependence on local incidence angle or by the influence of Sentinel-1 SAR sub-swath configuration in the Terrain Observation with Progressive Scans SAR (TOPSAR) method that is used for the measurements.