Where Greenland's glaciers end, year by year — NSIDC-0642

In plain English

What it measures. The yearly position of the ice fronts, where the glacier meets the sea, for 239 outlet glaciers in Greenland, drawn as lines that can be compared year to year.

How it's made. Traced from radar mosaics (Sentinel-1 and RADARSAT-1) and Landsat optical imagery, with coverage stretching back to the early 1970s for some glaciers.

How & where you'd use it. Lets scientists see which Greenland glaciers are retreating or advancing over the decades, a key signal of ice-sheet change and sea-level contribution.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIERS › GLACIER EXTENT

Coverage & cadence

Time span1972-09-16 → 2021-03-25
Measured byLANDSAT-1 (MSS) · LANDSAT-2 (MSS) · LANDSAT-3 (MSS) · LANDSAT-4 (MSS, TM) · LANDSAT-5 (TM) · LANDSAT-7 (ETM+) · LANDSAT-8 (OLI) · RADARSAT-1 (SAR) · Sentinel-1A (C-SAR) · Sentinel-1B (C-SAR)
Processing levelLevel 3
Spatial extent-75, 60, -14, 83
FormatsShapefile
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, consists of annual, digitized (polyline) ice front positions for 239 outlet glaciers in Greenland. Ice front positions are derived from Sentinel-1A, Sentinel-1B, and RADARSAT-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mosaics, plus imagery from Landsat 1 through Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 and Landsat 8. Although temporal coverage varies by glacier, data are available for the winter seasons 1972–1973 through 2020–2021. Data are provided as shapefiles. See <a href="http://nsidc.org/data/measures/gimp">Greenland Ice Mapping Project (GrIMP)</a> for related data.

Get the data

nsidc-0642_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NSIDC-0642",
    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