Ground height tracked monthly at Greenland's summit — IS2TGPSSS

In plain English

What it measures. Monthly readings of exactly how high the ice surface sits near Summit Station in central Greenland, taken with GPS along a fixed survey line.

How it's made. Collected on the ground by people driving a GPS unit along a set route, deliberately lined up with the paths that the ICESat and ICESat-2 satellites fly over.

How & where you'd use it. Serves as a ground-truth check for satellite ice-elevation measurements, helping confirm whether the satellites are reading Greenland's surface correctly.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATION

Coverage & cadence

Time span2006-08-24 → 2025-04-02
Measured byGROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS (GPS)
Processing levelLevel Not provided
Spatial extent-38.58567, 72.57862, -38.47419, 72.64822
FormatsRINEX, CSV
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 is a data set of monthly Global Positioning System (GPS) surface elevation and position data gathered along a defined survey transect to the west of Summit Station, Greenland. The data transect is aligned with ICESat and ICESat-2 reference ground tracks (RGTs) to support ground comparison efforts.

Get the data

is2tgpsss_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="IS2TGPSSS",
    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