How the height of land ice changes over time (ICESat-2)
What it measures. Tracks the changing height of the surface of polar land ice over time, along with markers that tell you whether each height reading is trustworthy or possibly an error. It also flags where floating ice shelves sit.
How it's made. Built by NASA's ICESat-2 satellite, which measures surface heights with a laser, and derived from a lower-level land-ice height product (ATL06) by organizing repeat passes over the same ground tracks into time series.
How & where you'd use it. Mainly a building-block input feeding higher-level gridded maps that scientists use to study how ice sheets are gaining or losing height, rather than something most people open directly.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2019-03-29 → ongoing
- Measured byICESat-2 (ATLAS)
- Processing levelLevel 3
- Spatial extent-180, -88, 180, 88
- FormatsHDF5
- StatusACTIVE
What you can do with it
- Measure sea ice, snow cover and glaciers
- Watch ice-sheet elevation change
- Track freeze/thaw and permafrost
Official description
ATL11 provides spatially organized time series of land-ice surface heights and ice-shelf locations where ICESat-2 operates in repeat-track mode (i.e., for polar ice), along with parameters useful in determining whether each height estimate is valid or a result of potential errors. ATL11 is derived from the ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Land Ice Height product (ATL06) and intended primarily as an input for higher-level gridded products.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="ATL11",
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_CPRDBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
- Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
- Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
- A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
- Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3B Slope-Corrected Land Ice Height Time Series, Version 7 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- ATL11 Data Dictionary (V7) VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- ATL11 Known Issues (V7) VIEW RELATED INFORMATION