These images, acquired nine days apart, both show the influence on wave patterns of a subsurface sediment spit near the mouth of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington. The river is one of the largest in the world without a delta. The optically processed image to the left was acquired from Fu, L.-L., and B. Holt, “Seasat Views Ocean and Sea Ice with Synthetic-Aperture Radar,” Publication 81-120, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., 1982.
Two Seasat SAR images, digitally processed 26 years apart, highlight advances in digital processing techniques and data storage technology. These advances allow more Seasat data to be processed and readily available for quantitative analysis to users around the world. The white line in the image to the right is from a calibration pulse.