Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/IGGRV1B
IGGRV1B·v2·dataset

Earth's gravity measured by aircraft (IceBridge)

IceBridge Sander AIRGrav L1B Geolocated Free Air Gravity Anomalies V002
deformation NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 1B ASCII
In plain English

What it measures. Tiny variations in Earth's gravity, recorded as acceleration in three directions from a research aircraft. The readings are corrected for the aircraft's own motion and pinned to exact latitude and longitude along each flight line.

How it's made. Collected by the Sander Geophysics AIRGrav airborne gravity system flown on NASA aircraft during Operation IceBridge campaigns, with corrections applied at several time-filtering scales.

How & where you'd use it. Researchers use airborne gravity to map what lies beneath ice and rock, such as the shape of the bedrock under polar ice sheets. It is a specialist input rather than something the general public reads directly.

What's measured

SOLID EARTH › GRAVITY/GRAVITATIONAL FIELD › GRAVITY

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2009-10-16 → 2018-11-17
  • Measured byDC-8 (AIRGrav) · P-3B (AIRGrav)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, -53
  • FormatsASCII
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Measure ground motion and subsidence (InSAR)
  • Track earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides
  • Map elevation and terrain change
Official description

This data set contains gravity measurements, including acceleration data in three orthogonal directions, from the Sander Geophysics AIRGrav airborne gravity system. Gravity data include latitude and Eotvos-corrected values, as well as free air correction at various along-flight-line time filtering scales. The data were collected as part of Operation IceBridge funded campaigns.

Get the data

iggrv1b_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="IGGRV1B",
    version="2",
    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.