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Full catalog/ATL08
ATL08·v007·dataset

Ground and tree-canopy height by laser (ICESat-2, v6)

ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Land and Vegetation Height V006
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 3 active HDF5
In plain English

What it measures. Along the satellite's track, estimates of the ground (terrain) height, the height of tree canopies above it, and how much canopy cover there is.

How it's made. Measured by the ATLAS laser instrument on NASA's ICESat-2 satellite, which times laser pulses reflecting off the ground and treetops; this is version 6.

How & where you'd use it. Used to map forest height and structure, estimate how much carbon forests store, and study vegetation and terrain over large areas.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATIONBIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › CANOPY CHARACTERISTICS › VEGETATION HEIGHT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2018-10-14 → ongoing
  • Measured byICESat-2 (ATLAS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • 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

ATL08 contains along-track estimates of terrain height, canopy height, and canopy cover, as well as beam and reference parameters. Data were acquired by the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) instrument on board the ICESat-2 observatory.

Get the data

atl08_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ATL08",
    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.