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Full catalog/GEDI01_B
GEDI01_B·v002·dataset

Raw laser pulse shapes from forests (GEDI)

GEDI L1B Geolocated Waveform Data Global Footprint Level V002
land NASA LPCLOUD Level 1B HDF5
In plain English

What it measures. The detailed shape of laser pulses bounced off Earth's surface and vegetation, precisely located, for each of the instrument's eight laser beams.

How it's made. Created from GEDI's raw lidar waveforms collected aboard the International Space Station, by geolocating and smoothing them into corrected waveforms.

How & where you'd use it. A low-level input mainly used to build higher-level products about forest height and structure; most people work with those derived products rather than the raw waveforms directly.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHYBIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › CANOPY CHARACTERISTICSLAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATION › DIGITAL ELEVATION/TERRAIN MODEL (DEM)SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › LIDARSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › LIDAR › LIDAR WAVEFORM

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2019-04-04 → 2023-03-16
  • Measured byISS (GEDI)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -54, 180, 54
  • FormatsHDF5
  • StatusCOMPLETE

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

The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation ([GEDI](https://gedi.umd.edu/)) mission aims to characterize ecosystem structure and dynamics to enable radically improved quantification and understanding of the Earth’s carbon cycle and biodiversity. The GEDI instrument produces high resolution laser ranging observations of the 3-dimensional structure of the Earth. GEDI is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 51.6° N and 51.6° S latitudes at the highest resolution and densest sampling of any light detection and ranging (lidar) instrument in orbit to date. Each GEDI Version 2 granule encompasses one-fourth of an ISS orbit and includes georeferenced metadata to allow for spatial querying and subsetting. The GEDI instrument was removed from the ISS and placed into storage on March 17, 2023. No data were acquired during the hibernation period from March 17, 2023, to April 24, 2024. GEDI has since been reinstalled on the ISS and resumed operations as of April 26, 2024. The GEDI Level 1B Geolocated Waveforms product (GEDI01_B) provides geolocated corrected and smoothed waveforms, geolocation parameters, and geophysical corrections for each laser shot for all eight GEDI beams. GEDI01_B data are created by geolocating the GEDI01_A raw waveform data. The GEDI01_B product is provided in HDF5 format and has a spatial resolution (average footprint) of 25 meters. The GEDI01_B data product contains 85 layers for each of the eight beams including the geolocated corrected and smoothed waveform datasets and parameters and the accompanying ancillary, geolocation, and geophysical correction. Additional information can be found in the GEDI L1B Product Data Dictionary. Known Issues * Data acquisition gaps: GEDI data acquisitions were suspended on December 19, 2019 (2019 Day 353) and resumed on January 8, 2020 (2020 Day 8). * Incorrect Reference Ground Track (RGT) number in the filename for select GEDI files: GEDI Science Data Products for six orbits on August 7, 2020, and November 12, 2021, had the incorrect RGT number in the filename. There is no impact to the science data, but users should reference this [document](https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/documents/2236/GEDI_CORRECTED_RGT_FILENAMES.pptx) for the correct RGT numbers. * Known Issues: Section 8 of the User Guide provides additional information on known issues.

Get the data

gedi01_b_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="GEDI01_B",
    version="002",
    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 LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.