How fast Antarctic ice flows (Amundsen Sea) — NSIDC-0545

In plain English

What it measures. How fast the ice is flowing across the Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica, including the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, shown as detailed ice-motion maps.

How it's made. Assembled from radar images taken over time (interferometric SAR) by several satellites during 1996, 2000, 2002, and 2006 through 2012.

How & where you'd use it. Reveals how quickly these critical glaciers are moving and changing, important for understanding their contribution to rising seas.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › ICE VELOCITY

Coverage & cadence

Time span1996-01-01 → 1996-12-31
Measured byALOS (PALSAR) · ERS-1 (SAR) · RADARSAT-1 (SAR) · RADARSAT-2 (SAR) · TDX (SAR)
Processing levelLevel 3
Spatial extent-127.3826, -80.4614, 82.8345, -71.9876
FormatsnetCDF-3, Binary, ASCII
StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

Measure sea ice, snow cover and glaciers
Watch ice-sheet elevation change
Track freeze/thaw and permafrost

Official description

This data set, part of the NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program, provides high-resolution, digital mosaics of ice motion in the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) and West Antarctica, including the Pine Island, Thwaites, Haynes, Pope, Smith, and Kohler glaciers. The mosaics were assembled from interferometric synthetic-aperture radar (InSAR) data acquired in 1996, 2000, 2002, and 2006-2012 by various satellites. See <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/measures/aiv">Antarctic Ice Sheet Velocity and Mapping Data</a> for related data.

Get the data

nsidc-0545_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NSIDC-0545",
    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