1. Introduction#

1.1 Context#

BIOMASS is ESA’s 7th Earth Explorer mission. The purpose of the BIOMASS is to reduce the uncertainty in the worldwide spatial distribution and dynamics of forest biomass in order to improve current assessments and future projections of the global carbon cycle. This objective will be achieved by the implementation of a P-band SAR mission, providing global maps of forest biomass stocks, forest disturbance and growth.

The BIOMASS mission will also provide 3D views of forests through the “tomographic” phase and will also support additional science needs arising from the opportunity to explore the Earth for the first time with a P-band SAR system from space offering the possibility to “see” below the vegetated areas and in beneath bare soil or icy regions.

To achieve its challenging objectives, the BIOMASS mission requires a specific data processing strategy that combines different technologies at different processing level in order to generate the final Above Ground Biomass global map.

1.2 Scope of the document#

The purpose of this document is to provide the “L1a/b/c Products Format Specification” for the BIOMASS Processing Suite (BPS) project.

This document is organized as follows:

Section 2: Brief introduction about BPS and L1 products;
Section 3: Overview of L1a/b products format;
Section 4: Detailed description of L1a/b products format specifications;
Section 5: Overview of L1c products format;
Section 6: Detailed description of L1c products format specifications;
Section 7 (Appendix): Detailed description of common products format specifications.

1.3 Acronyms#

Acronyms

Acronym	Description
ADS	Annotation Data Set
ARESYS	Advanced Remote Sensing and Systems
BPS	BIOMASS Processing Suite
COG	Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF
DEM	Digital Elevation Model
DGM	Detected Ground-range Multi-looked
DSR	Data Set Record
L1a	Level-1a product
L1b	Level-1b product
L1c	Level-1c product
L1M	Level-1 Monitoring product
L1S	Level-1 Standard product
LUT	Look-Up Tables
MDS	Measurement Data Set
MPH	Main Product Header
NetCDF	Network Common Data Form
OGC	Open Geospatial Consortium
PARC	Polarimetric Active Radar Calibrator
RDS	Representation Data Set
SAR	Synthetic Aperture Radar
SCS	Single-look Complex Slant-range

1.4 Symbols and Variables#

1.5 Applicable documents#

Code	Document
`[AD1]`	[`L1_PFD`] `BIO-ESA-EOPG-EEGS-TN-0044`, BIOMASS L1 Product Format Definition, I/R 2/0
`[AD2]`	[`PROD_NAMING`] `BIO-ESA-EOPG-EEGS-TN-0050`, BIOMASS Products Naming Convention, I/R 2/4
`[AD3]`	[MPH] `BIO-ESA-EOPG-EEGS-TN-0051`, BIOMASS Products - Main Product Header Definition, I/R 2/3
`[AD4]`	[`AUX_FMT`] `BIO-ESA-EOPG-EEGS-TN-0054`, BIOMASS Auxiliary Product Format Definition, I/R 2/1/1
`[AD5]`	`PE-ID-ESA-GS-584`, Earth Observation Mission Software File Format Specification, I/R 1/4

1.6 Reference documents#

Code	Document
`[RD1]`	Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF format, https://www.cogeo.org/
`[RD2]`	GDAL library, https://gdal.org/
`[RD3]`	GDAL library Wiki - Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF section, https://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/CloudOptimizedGeoTIFF#HowtoreaditwithGDAL
`[RD4]`	LibTIFF - TIFF Library and Utilities, https://libtiff.gitlab.io/libtiff/
`[RD5]`	TIFF format tags, https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/content/tiff\_tags.shtml
`[RD6]`	Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) format, https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/
`[RD7]`	Well-Known Text representation of coordinate reference systems, https://www.iso.org/standard/63094.html

Acronym	Description
\(\beta^0\)	Beta-nought quantity
\(\sigma^0\)	Sigma-nought quantity
\(\gamma^0\)	Gamma-nought quantity