Airborne laser surface heights (IceBridge, v2) — ILVIS2

In plain English

What it measures. Surface-height measurements over parts of Greenland, recording the elevation of the ice, land, and snow surfaces beneath the aircraft.

How it's made. Collected by NASA's LVIS airborne laser scanner, a lidar altimeter flown on aircraft during Operation IceBridge campaigns, and processed into located surface elevations.

How & where you'd use it. Helps map and monitor ice-surface elevation and change in Greenland, supporting studies of ice loss and sea-level contribution.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATION

Coverage & cadence

Time span2017-08-25 → 2017-09-20
Measured byAIRCRAFT (ALTIMETERS, LASERS) · B-200 (LVIS) · C-130 (LVIS) · DC-8 (LVIS) · G-V (LVIS) · HU-25C (LVIS) · P-3B (LVIS) · RQ-4 (LVIS)
Processing levelLevel 2
Spatial extent-180, 60, 180, 90
FormatsASCII
StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time

Official description

This data set contains surface elevation data over parts of Greenland, measured by the NASA Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS), an airborne lidar scanning laser altimeter. The data were collected as part of NASA Operation IceBridge funded campaigns.

Get the data

ilvis2_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ILVIS2",
    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.

What's measured

Coverage & cadence

What you can do with it

Get the data

Official links