Overview

NSIDC archives and distributes 15 Level-1 and Level-2 data products from the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) instrument aboard the NASA Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) satellite, launched on 12 January 2003.

The main objective of the GLAS instrument is to measure ice sheet elevations and changes in elevation through time. Secondary objectives include measurement of cloud and aerosol height profiles, land elevation and vegetation cover, and sea ice thickness.

To navigate this Web site, use the menu to the left. For news about the latest happenings with ICESat/GLAS data, see the News page. For more information about GLAS data that NSIDC provides, see the Data Summaries page which lists individual products that NSIDC distributes. See the Current Release Schedule page for a listing of the most current version of GLAS data available; and for a detailed description of the current data release, see the Description of Current Data Release page.