Laser height of ice and snow surfaces (IceBridge)
What it measures. Precise spot heights of ice and snow surfaces, plus how strongly the laser pulse bounced back, over Arctic and Antarctic sea ice and ice sheets.
How it's made. Gathered by NASA's Airborne Topographic Mapper laser instrument flown on aircraft during Operation IceBridge survey campaigns.
How & where you'd use it. Used to map ice surface elevation and change, supporting studies of sea ice and ice sheets and bridging gaps between satellite missions.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2013-03-20 → 2019-11-20
- Measured byC-130 (ATM) · DC-8 (ATM) · G-V (ATM) · HU-25A (ATM) · HU-25C (ATM) · P-3B (ATM) · WP-3D ORION (ATM)
- Processing levelLevel 1B
- Spatial extent-180, 60, 180, 90
- FormatsHDF5
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
- Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
- Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description
This data set contains spot elevation measurements of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and Greenland, Antarctic Peninsula, and West Antarctic region ice surface acquired using the NASA Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) instrumentation. The data were collected as part of Operation IceBridge funded aircraft survey campaigns.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="ILATM1B",
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_CPRDBrowsing 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
- 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
- IceBridge ATM L1B Elevation and Return Strength, Version 2 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- List of ATM L1B ITRF Versions VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- List of ATM Transceivers Used During IceBridge Missions VIEW RELATED INFORMATION