Name: MEaSUREs BedMachine Antarctica, Version 1
Creator: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Keywords: BATHYMETRY,BED ELEVATION,FIRN AIR CONTENT,GLACIER/ICE SHEET THICKNESS,TERRAIN ELEVATION

MEaSUREs BedMachine Antarctica, Version 1

Data set id:

NSIDC-0756

DOI: 10.5067/C2GFER6PTOS4

Data Citation and Acknowledgment
As a condition of using these data, you must cite the use of this data set. Such a practice gives credit to data set producers and advances principles of transparency and reproducibility.

Morlighem, M. (2019). MEaSUREs BedMachine Antarctica. (NSIDC-0756, Version 1). [Data Set]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/C2GFER6PTOS4. [describe subset used if applicable]. Date Accessed 09-13-2025.

Copied

Other standard citation formats may be found on the DOI Citation Formatter website (paste 10.5067/C2GFER6PTOS4 into the top form field).

Describing subset: When applicable, include the information a reader would need to extract the same subset at the end of your citation. If multiple or complex steps were incolved, it may be more appropriate to include this information in the paper itself.

See our Citation Policies for more details about how to structure your data citation.

Literature references: Please include the following literature citations in addition to the data citation above:

Morlighem, M., Rignot, E., Binder, T., Blankenship, D. D., Drews, R., Eagles, G., Eisen, O., Ferraccioli, F., Forsberg, R., Fretwell, P., Goel, V., Greenbaum, J. S., Gudmundsson, H., Guo, J., Helm, V., Hofstede, C., Howat, I., Humbert, A., Jokat, W., Karlsson, N. B., Lee, W., Matsuoka, K., Millan, R., Mouginot, J., Paden, J., Pattyn, F., Roberts, J. L., Rosier, S., Ruppel, A., Seroussi, H., Smith, E. C., Steinhage, D., Sun, B., van den Broeke, M. R., van Ommen, T., van Wessem, M. & Young, D. A.. 2020. Deep glacial troughs and stabilizing ridges unveiled beneath the margins of the Antarctic ice sheet. Nature Geoscience. 13. DOI: 10.1038/s41561-019-0510-8.

There is a more recent version of these data.
Version Summary

Initial release

Overview

This data set, part of the NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, contains a bed topography/bathymetry map of Antarctica based on mass conservation, streamline diffusion, and other methods. The data set also includes ice thickness, surface elevation, an ice/ocean/land mask, ice thickness estimation errors, and a map showing where each method was utilized.

Parameter(s):

BATHYMETRY

BED ELEVATION

FIRN AIR CONTENT

GLACIER/ICE SHEET THICKNESS

TERRAIN ELEVATION

Platform(s):

MODELS

Sensor(s):

NOT APPLICABLE

Data Format(s):

netCDF-4

Temporal Coverage:

1 January 1970 to 1 October 2019

Temporal Resolution:

Not applicable

Spatial Resolution:

500 m

500 m

Spatial Reference System(s):

WGS 84 / Antarctic Polar Stereographic
EPSG:3031

Spatial Coverage:

N:
-53
S:
-90
E:
180
W:
-180

Blue outlined yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.

View Metadata Record

Data Access & Tools

This data set has been retired. There is a more recent version of these data.

Documentation

User Guide

MEaSUREs BedMachine Antarctica, Version 1 User Guide

Help Articles

General Questions & FAQs

FAQs About NSIDC DAAC's Earthdata Cloud Migration

This article covers frequently asked questions about the NASA NSIDC DAAC's Earthdata cloud migration project and what it means to data users.

The NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) is migrating its primary data access from its legacy, on-premises archive to the NASA Earthdata Cloud.

How to Articles

Downloading Data from Earthdata Cloud to Your Local Computer Using the Command Line

This article shows how to download NSIDC DAAC data from NASA Earthdata Cloud to your computer using three tools: wget and curl—popular command-line utilities for downloading files—and Data Downloader, a Python-based command-line tool developed by the Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archi

Many NSIDC DAAC data sets can be accessed using NSIDC DAAC's Data Access Tool. This tool provides the ability to search and filter data with spatial and temporal constraints using a map-based interface.Users have the option to:

There are MATLAB and Python scripts available for interpolating the BedMachine Antarctica parameters onto user-defined latitude and longitude. They are available from the following GitHub repository, which includes further details on how to use the scripts:

NASA Earthdata Cloud Data Access Guide

The NASA Earthdata Cloud is the NASA cloud-based archive of Earth observations. It is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Learn how to find and access NSIDC DAAC data directly in the cloud.