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Full catalog/RDWES1B
RDWES1B·v1·dataset

Sea ice height and roughness from radar (CryoSat-2)

CryoSat-2 Level-1B Waveforms, Sea Ice Elevation, and Surface Roughness V001
cryosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 1B active netCDF-3
In plain English

What it measures. Surface elevations (heights) and roughness of sea ice, along with the radar return shapes and the parameters used to interpret them.

How it's made. Derived from radar return signals (waveforms) recorded by Europe's CryoSat-2 satellite and processed to pull out surface heights.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists measure sea ice elevation and surface texture, supporting studies of sea ice thickness and change in the polar regions.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › SEA ICE › SEA ICE ELEVATIONLAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › SURFACE ROUGHNESS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2010-09-15 → ongoing
  • Measured byCRYOSAT-2 (SIRAL)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, 55, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-3
  • StatusACTIVE

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 contains surface elevations from retracked CryoSat-2 waveforms, as well as model fitting parameters used to retrack the waveform. The primary data set used in the production of these data come from the ESA CryoSat-2 satellite.

Get the data

rdwes1b_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="RDWES1B",
    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.