Python tools for obtaining and working with elevation data from the NASA ICESat-2 mission
| Product | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ATL00 | Telemetry Data | Raw ATLAS telemetry in packet format |
| ATL01 | Reformatted Telemetry | Parsed, partially reformatted into HDF5, generated daily, segmented into several minute granules |
| ATL02 | Science Unit Converted Telemetry | Photon time of flight, corrected for instrument effects. Includes all photons, pointing data, spacecraft position, housekeeping data, engineering data, and raw atmospheric profiles, segmented into several minute granules. |
| ATL03 | Global Geolocated Photon Data | Precise latitude, longitude and elevation for every received photon, arranged by beam in the along-track direction. Photons classified by signal vs. background, as well as by surface type (land ice, sea ice, land, ocean), including all geophysical corrections. Segmented into several minute granules. |
| ATL04 | Uncalibrated Backscatter Profiles | Along-track atmospheric backscatter data, 25 times per second. Includes calibration coefficients for polar regions. Segmented into several minute granules. |
| ATL06 | Land Ice Elevation | Surface height for each beam with along- and across-track slopes calculated for each beam pair. Posted at 40 meters along-track. Segmented into several minute granules. |
| ATL07 | Arctic/Antarctic Sea Ice Elevation | Height of sea ice and open water leads at varying length scale based on returned photon rate for each beam presented along-track. Segmented into several minute granules. |
| ATL08 | Land Water Vegetation Elevation | Height of ground including canopy surface posted at variable length scales relative to signal level, for each beam presented along-track. Where data permits include canopy height, canopy cover percentage, surface slope and roughness, and apparent reflectance. |
| ATL09 | Calibrated Backscatter and Cloud Characteristics | Along-track cloud and other significant atmosphere layer heights, blowing snow, integrated backscatter, and optical depth. |
| ATL10 | Arctic/Antarctic Sea Ice Freeboard | Estimate of sea ice freeboard over specific spatial scales using all available sea surface height measurements. Contains statistics of sea surface and sea ice heights. |
| ATL11 | Antarctic/Greenland Ice Sheet H(t) Series | Time series of height at points on the ice sheet, calculated based on repeat tracks and/or cross-overs. |
| ATL12 | Ocean Elevation | Surface height at specific length scale. |
| ATL13 | Inland Water Height | Along-track inland and near shore water surface height distribution within water mask. |
| ATL14 | Antarctic/Greenland Ice Sheet H(t) Gridded | Height maps of each ice sheet for each year based on all available elevation data. |
| ATL15 | Antarctic/Greenland Ice Sheet dh/dt Gridded | Height change maps for each ice sheet, for each mission year, and for the whole mission. |
| ATL16 | ATLAS Atmosphere Weekly | Polar cloud fraction, blowing snow frequency, ground detection frequency. |
| ATL17 | ATLAS Atmosphere Monthly | Polar cloud fraction, blowing snow frequency, ground detection frequency. |
| ATL18 | Land/Canopy Gridded | Gridded ground surface height, canopy height, and canopy cover estimates. |
| ATL19 | Mean Sea Surface (MSS) | Gridded ocean height product. |
| ATL20 | Arctic/Antarctic Gridded Sea Ice Freeboard | Gridded sea ice freeboard. |
| ATL21 | Arctic/Antarctic Gridded Sea Surface Height w/in Sea Ice | Gridded monthly sea surface height inside the sea ice cover. |
Each orbit of ICESat-2 data is broken up into 14 granules. The granule boundaries limit the size of each ATL03 file and simplify the formation of higher level data products.
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The program homepage is:
A zip archive of the latest version is available directly at:
This project contains work and contributions from the scientific community. This program is not sponsored or maintained by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) or NASA. It is provided here for your convenience but with no guarantees whatsoever.
The content of this project is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Attribution license and the source code is licensed under the MIT license.