Raw laser ranging measurements of Earth's surface (ICESat)

In plain English

What it measures. Surface elevations of the Earth measured by laser, already adjusted for tides, atmospheric delays, and surface effects within each laser footprint.

How it's made. Produced by the GLAS laser altimeter aboard the original ICESat satellite, as an early-stage elevation record similar to the geodetic data from radar altimetry missions.

How & where you'd use it. Primarily an input used together with related products to create finished elevation maps of ice sheets, sea ice, land, and oceans, rather than a product most people use on its own.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIER ELEVATION/ICE SHEET ELEVATIONCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIER TOPOGRAPHY/ICE SHEET TOPOGRAPHYCRYOSPHERE › SEA ICE › ICE ROUGHNESSCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › ICE SHEETSCRYOSPHERE › SEA ICE › REFLECTANCEOCEANS › SEA SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY › SEA SURFACE HEIGHTOCEANS › SEA SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY › SEA SURFACE SLOPELAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › SURFACE ROUGHNESSLAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATION

Coverage & cadence

Time span2003-02-20 → 2009-10-11
Measured byICESat (ALTIMETERS, CD, GLAS, GPS, GPS Receiver, LA, PC)
Processing levelLevel 1B
Spatial extent-180, -86, 180, 86
FormatsHDF5
StatusCOMPLETE

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

GLAH06 Level-1B Global Elevation is a product that is analogous to the geodetic data records distributed for radar altimetry missions. It contains elevations previously corrected for tides, atmospheric delays, and surface characteristics within the footprint. Elevation is calculated using the ice sheet parameterization. Additional information allows the user to calculate an elevation based on land, sea ice, or ocean algorithms. Each data granule has an associated browse product.

Get the data

glah06_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="GLAH06",
    version="034",
    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 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
Discover, access, and visualize data from NASA's ICESat and ICESat-2 missions. 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
GLAS/ICESat L1B Global Elevation Data (HDF5), Version 34 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
GLAS Altimetry HDF5 Product Usage Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION