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Full catalog/IRSNO1B
IRSNO1B·v2·dataset

Radar echoes mapping snow layers from a plane

IceBridge Snow Radar L1B Geolocated Radar Echo Strength Profiles V002
hydrosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 1B netCDF-4XMLJPEG
In plain English

What it measures. These are radar echo strength profiles of snow and ice, showing the layers hidden beneath the surface of land ice and sea ice. The strength of the returning radar echo reveals the internal structure of the snowpack.

How it's made. An ultra wide-band snow radar flown on research aircraft over the Arctic, Antarctic, and Alaska's mountains and glaciers gathered the raw, geolocated echo measurements as part of NASA's Operation IceBridge.

How & where you'd use it. Researchers use these profiles to study snow accumulation on ice sheets and sea ice. As a lower-level radar product, it is mainly a building block for scientists rather than something the general public reads directly.

What's measured

TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIER TOPOGRAPHY/ICE SHEET TOPOGRAPHYSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › RADAR › RADAR IMAGERYCRYOSPHERE › SEA ICE › SEA ICE ELEVATIONOCEANS › SEA ICE › SEA ICE ELEVATIONCRYOSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › SNOW COVER

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2009-03-31 → 2021-05-13
  • Measured byC-130 (SNOW RADAR) · DC-8 (SNOW RADAR) · DHC-3 (SNOW RADAR) · G-V (SNOW RADAR) · P-3B (SNOW RADAR) · WP-3D ORION (SNOW RADAR)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, -53
  • FormatsnetCDF-4, XML, JPEG
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Follow rainfall, floods and surface-water extent
  • Track soil moisture and the onset of drought
  • Monitor lakes, rivers and groundwater storage
Official description

This data set contains radar echograms taken from the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) ultra wide-band snow radar over land and sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. In addition, airborne snow measurements were taken during 10 flights over Alaska mountains, ice fields, and glaciers at the end of May 2018 by a compact CReSIS FMCW radar system installed on a Single Otter aircraft. The data were collected as part of Operation IceBridge funded campaigns.

Get the data

irsno1b_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="IRSNO1B",
    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.