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Full catalog/HMA_GlacierAvg_dH
HMA_GlacierAvg_dH·v1·dataset

How much High Mountain Asia glaciers thinned

High Mountain Asia Average Glacier Thickness Change from Multi-Sensor DEMs V001
cryosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 2 ShapefileKML
In plain English

What it measures. Average changes in glacier thickness across High Mountain Asia, telling you how much the region's glaciers thinned over two periods: 1975-2000 and 2000-2016. It covers hundreds to over a thousand Himalayan glaciers.

How it's made. Derived by comparing elevation maps (DEMs) built from declassified HEXAGON KH-9 spy-satellite imagery and the Terra satellite's ASTER instrument, fitting trends to elevation changes over each glacier.

How & where you'd use it. Used to measure glacier loss in the Himalayas, an important indicator of climate change and a concern for the water supplies that depend on these glaciers.

What's measured

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

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1974-01-01 → 2017-12-31
  • Measured byHEXAGON KH-9 (CAMERA) · Terra (ASTER)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent75.4, 27.4, 92.9, 34.4
  • FormatsShapefile, KML
  • 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

This data set contains average thickness changes for approximately 650 Himalayan glaciers between 1975 and 2000, and 1040 Himalayan glaciers between 2000 and 2016. The data were derived from HEXAGON KH-9 and ASTER digital elevation models (DEMs), by fitting robust linear trends to time series of elevation pixels over the glacier surfaces.

Get the data

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="HMA_GlacierAvg_dH",
    version="1",
    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.