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Full catalog/ATL08
ATL08·v007·dataset

Ground and tree-canopy height by laser (ICESat-2, v7)

ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Land and Vegetation Height V007
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 3 active HDF5
In plain English

What it measures. This estimates the height of the bare ground and the height of trees and other vegetation on top of it, along the satellite's track, plus how much canopy covers the ground.

How it's made. Produced from the ATLAS laser altimeter aboard ICESat-2 as a Level-3 product, derived from the instrument's laser returns.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for measuring forest height and density, estimating how much carbon forests store, and mapping terrain beneath vegetation.

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.