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Full catalog/NSIDC-0793
NSIDC-0793·v1·dataset

Where Greenland's ice sheet reached each month, 1972-2022

MEaSUREs ITS_LIVE Greenland Monthly 120 m Ice Sheet Extent Masks, 1972-2022 V001
atmosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 4 netCDF-4MP4
In plain English

What it measures. Monthly maps showing exactly how far the Greenland Ice Sheet extended from 1972 to 2022 — essentially the ice's outline each month at fine 120 m detail.

How it's made. Built from over 237,000 glacier-front positions traced from satellite optical and radar images (by hand and with AI), with gaps filled in using observations before and after and known flow speeds; the platform is listed as model-based gap-filling.

How & where you'd use it. Shows how Greenland's glaciers have advanced and retreated over 50 years, helping scientists track ice loss and its role in rising seas; animations are included for hundreds of glacier basins.

What's measured

CLIMATE INDICATORS › CRYOSPHERIC INDICATORS › ICE EXTENT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1972-09-15 → 2022-02-15
  • Measured byMODELS (NOT APPLICABLE)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-94.4, 58.33, 11.32, 81.51
  • FormatsnetCDF-4, MP4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

This ITS_LIVE data set, part of the Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program, contains monthly, 120 m resolution ice masks for the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1972 to 2022. The presence of ice was determined from 237,556 manually and AI-derived terminus positions acquired by satellite optical and radar observations. Months with no observations have been gap-filled using past and future observations of terminus positions and advance rates constrained by the average flow speed of the glacier. Animations are also available for 206 catchments that show how the ice front positions have changed over the course of the time series and can be used as a quality control check.

Get the data

nsidc-0793_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NSIDC-0793",
    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.