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Full catalog/ATL02
ATL02·v007·dataset

Calibrated raw laser signals (ICESat-2)

ATLAS/ICESat-2 L1B Converted Telemetry Data V007
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 1B active HDF5
In plain English

What it measures. The cleaned-up, calibrated raw signals from ICESat-2's space laser as it pulses toward Earth, organized in time order for quality checks. It is an early processing stage, not a finished elevation map.

How it's made. Produced by the ICESat-2 ground processing system from the satellite's laser altimeter telemetry, with precise timing and pointing information added.

How & where you'd use it. A building-block input that feeds the higher-level ice, land, and water height products most people actually use, rather than something used directly.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › SENSOR CHARACTERISTICS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2018-10-13 → ongoing
  • Measured byICESat-2 (ATLAS)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -88, 180, 88
  • FormatsHDF5
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

These Level 1B time-ordered telemetry data are used for system-level, quality control analysis by the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) ICESat-2 Science Investigator-led Processing System (SIPS). They also provide source data for the Level 2 products and the Precision Orbit Determination (POD) and Precision Pointing Determination (PPD) computations.

Get the data

atl02_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ATL02",
    version="007",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.