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Full catalog/ATL13
ATL13·v007·dataset

Water height of lakes and rivers by laser (ICESat-2, v6)

ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Along Track Inland Surface Water Data V006
hydrosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 3 active HDF5
In plain English

What it measures. The surface height of inland water bodies such as lakes, reservoirs, rivers, bays, and estuaries, measured along the satellite's track, plus extras like wave height and, in shallow spots, water depth.

How it's made. Derived from the ATLAS laser altimeter on NASA's ICESat-2 satellite, which bounces laser pulses off water surfaces and computes their elevation relative to both sea-level and an Earth reference shape.

How & where you'd use it. Used to monitor changing water levels in lakes and rivers, track reservoirs and water supply, and study floods and inland water trends; it also feeds a follow-on averaged water-height product.

What's measured

TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SURFACE WATER › SURFACE WATER FEATURES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2018-10-13 → ongoing
  • Measured byICESat-2 (ATLAS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -88, 180, 88
  • FormatsHDF5
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Follow rainfall, floods and surface-water extent
  • Track soil moisture and the onset of drought
  • Monitor lakes, rivers and groundwater storage
Official description

ATL13 provides along-track surface water products for inland water bodies, defined as lakes, reservoirs, bays, estuaries, rivers, and a 7 km near-shore buffer. Data parameters include surface water height statistics and related parameters including significant wave height, transect slope, subsurface signal attenuation, and shallow water bathymetry. Water surface heights are provided as both orthometric height and height referencing the WGS84 ellipsoid. ATL13 is also used to produce the ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3B Mean Inland Surface Water Data product (ATL22).

Get the data

atl13_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ATL13",
    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.