Ice surface height from a flying laser (narrow swath)
What it measures. Precise spot measurements of the height (elevation) of ice surfaces over Greenland and Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, plus how strongly each laser spot bounced back.
How it's made. Collected by NASA's Airborne Topographic Mapper, a narrow-swath laser flown on survey aircraft during Operation IceBridge campaigns.
How & where you'd use it. Used to track changes in ice surface height and thickness over time, helping scientists monitor polar ice loss 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-25C (ATM) · P-3B (ATM)
- Processing levelLevel 1B
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, -53
- 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 Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic sea ice acquired using the NASA Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) narrow-swath 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="ILNSA1B",
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 Narrow Swath 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