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Full catalog/NSIDC-0646
NSIDC-0646·v3·dataset

How fast Greenland glaciers flow (optical images)

MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Velocity: Selected Glacier Site Velocity Maps from Optical Images V003
cryosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 3 GeoTIFFShapefile
In plain English

What it measures. How fast selected Greenland outlet glaciers are flowing, given as monthly average velocity maps for chosen glacier sites.

How it's made. Produced by tracking visible surface features between pairs of optical images from the Landsat satellites and Terra's ASTER instrument.

How & where you'd use it. Helps monitor changes in Greenland's glaciers and their contribution to ice loss and sea-level rise.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › ICE VELOCITY

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1985-03-01 → 2021-11-30
  • Measured byLANDSAT-4 (TM) · LANDSAT-5 (TM) · LANDSAT-7 (ETM+) · LANDSAT-8 (OLI) · Terra (ASTER)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-70, 60, -20, 82
  • FormatsGeoTIFF, Shapefile
  • 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 mean monthly velocity maps for selected glacier outlet areas. The maps are generated by tracking visible features between optical image pairs acquired by the Landsat 4 and 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). See <a href="http://nsidc.org/data/measures/gimp">Greenland Ice Mapping Project (GIMP)</a> for related data.

Get the data

nsidc-0646_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NSIDC-0646",
    version="3",
    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.