Where Greenland's glaciers end and how they retreat (radar)
What it measures. The positions of where Greenland's outlet glaciers meet the sea (their ice fronts), traced as lines, and how those fronts advance or retreat over weeks to months.
How it's made. Digitized from radar mosaics taken by the Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B satellites, which see through clouds and darkness, covering 219 glaciers.
How & where you'd use it. Lets scientists track how fast Greenland's glaciers are retreating, an important signal for ice loss and sea-level rise.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2015-01-01 → 2021-12-31
- Measured bySentinel-1A (C-SAR) · Sentinel-1B (C-SAR)
- Processing levelLevel NA
- Spatial extent-73, 59, -15, 84
- 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 consists of sub-seasonal, digitized (polyline) ice front positions for 219 outlet glaciers in Greenland. For 199 glaciers, ice front positions are digitized at a monthly resolution. For 20 glaciers in northwestern Greenland, ice front positions are digitized at a 6-12 day resolution, depending on the availability of satellite imagery. Ice front positions are derived from Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mosaics.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="NSIDC-0781",
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_CPRDBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
- Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
- Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
- A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
- Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- MEaSUREs Weekly to Monthly Greenland Outlet Glacier Terminus Positions from Sentinel-1 Mosaics, Version 1 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION