ATLAS/ICESat-2 L2A Global Geolocated Photon Data, Version 5 (ATL03)
Data set:
ATL03
There is a more recent version of these data.
Version Summary
Version Summary
Changes for this version include:
- Updated photon heights to include time-dependent range bias. The mean offset between ATL03 version 4 and version 5 photon heights is on the order of 1.2 cm. See more details in the user guide and/or ATBD for this data product.
- Added XML metadata to indicate the percentage of each surface type within a granule.
- Updated podppd_flag to include identification of ATLAS calibration periods.
- Updated the default uncertainty values to represent the current best estimates.
- Improved the TEP flagging.
- Implemented some bug fixes including updates in the photon selection algorithm, calculation of the neutral atmosphere delay derivative and quality_ph flagging improvements.
Overview
This data set (ATL03) contains height above the WGS 84 ellipsoid (ITRF2014 reference frame), latitude, longitude, and time for all photons downlinked by the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) instrument on board the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) observatory. The ATL03 product was designed to be a single source for all photon data and ancillary information needed by higher-level ATLAS/ICESat-2 products. As such, it also includes spacecraft and instrument parameters and ancillary data not explicitly required for ATL03.
Parameter(s):
TERRAIN ELEVATION
Platform(s):
ICESat-2
Sensor(s):
ATLAS
Data Format(s):
HDF5
Temporal Coverage:
13 October 2018 to present
Temporal Resolution:
91 day
Spatial Resolution:
70 cm
70 cm
Spatial Reference System(s):
WGS 84
EPSG:4326
Spatial Coverage:
N:
90
S:
-90
E:
180
W:
-180
Yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.
Data Access & Tools
A free NASA Earthdata Login account is required to access these data. Learn More
Documentation
User Guide
ATBDs
General Resources
Product Specification Documents
Help Articles
How To
This webinar introduces the ICESat-2 mission and shows you how to explore, access and customize ICESat-2 data with the OpenAltimetry application, using NSIDC DAAC tools, and shows you how to subset, reformat and analyze the data using Python.
Many NSIDC DAAC data sets can be accessed using the 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
To convert HDF5 files into binary format you will need to use the h5dump utility, which is part of the HDF5 distribution available from the HDF Group. How you install HDF5 depends on your operating system.
This guide will provide an overview of the altimetry measurements and data sets across the missions, as well as a guide for accessing the data through NASA Earthdata Search and programmatically using an Application Programming Interface (API).
All data from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) can be accessed directly from our HTTPS file system, using wget or curl. Basic command line instructions are provided in the article below.
NASA Earthdata Search is a map-based interface where a user can search for Earth science data, filter results based on spatial and temporal constraints, and order data with customizations including re-formatting, re-projecting, and spatial and parameter subsetting.
Getting started
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 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.
This short article describes the customization services available for ICESat-2 data using Earthdata Search.