How tall the polar ice sheets are (ICESat-2, gridded)

In plain English

What it measures. A detailed elevation map (at 100 m spacing) showing how tall the Antarctic ice sheet and Arctic land ice are, in other words the height of the ice surface.

How it's made. Built from NASA's ICESat-2 laser altimeter measurements, derived from an earlier ICESat-2 ice-height time-series product and gridded into a smooth elevation model.

How & where you'd use it. Used to set up ice-sheet models, provide boundary conditions for atmospheric models, and help correct other satellite data like optical or radar imagery.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIER ELEVATION/ICE SHEET ELEVATION

Coverage & cadence

Time span2019-01-01 → ongoing
Measured byICESat-2 (ATLAS)
Processing levelLevel 3
Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, -60
FormatsnetCDF-4
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

This data set contains a high-resolution (100 m) gridded digital elevation model (DEM) for the Antarctic ice sheet and regions around the Arctic. The data can be used to initialize ice sheet models, as boundary conditions for atmospheric models, or to help with the reduction of other satellite data such as optical imagery or synthetic aperture radar (SAR). The data are derived from the ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3B Slope-Corrected Land Ice Height Time Series product (ATL11).

Get the data

atl14_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ATL14",
    version="005",
    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.

Official links

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
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
Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3B Gridded Antarctic and Arctic Land Ice Height, Version 5 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
ATL03/ICESat-2 Data Gaps (applies to all ICESat-2 products) VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
ICESat-2 Major Activities (includes yaw flips) VIEW RELATED INFORMATION