Raw radar echoes probing ice from aircraft (IceBridge)

In plain English

What it measures. Raw radar echo profiles from flying over select glaciers in Alaska, essentially the strength of radar signals bouncing back as the instrument probes down through the ice.

How it's made. Collected by a high-frequency radar sounder flown on an aircraft by the University of Alaska Fairbanks as part of NASA's IceBridge effort; this is a low-level (Level-1B) product with the echoes geolocated but otherwise close to raw.

How & where you'd use it. A building-block input for glaciologists studying ice thickness and internal structure, typically used to derive higher-level results rather than read directly.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › RADAR › RADAR IMAGERY

Coverage & cadence

Time span2013-03-22 → 2016-08-16
Measured byDHC-3 (RADAR ECHO SOUNDERS)
Processing levelLevel 1B
Spatial extent-157, 56, -129, 63
FormatsHDF5
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 radar echograms acquired by the University of Alaska Fairbanks High-Frequency Radar Sounder over select glaciers in Alaska.

Get the data

iruafhf1b_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="IRUAFHF1B",
    version="1",
    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