• On Wednesday, October 29 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (US Mountain Time), this data set may not be available in the legacy data archive due to a planned system maintenance. Earthdata Cloud access will remain available for data sets that have migrated. Users of the SMAP near real-time products should use the NASA LANCE HTTPS File System for data access.

  • The NSIDC DAAC is retiring access to its legacy, on-premises data archive and transitioning to the NASA Earthdata Cloud as the primary data archive. View planned retirement dates here.

GLAS/ICESat L2 Global Thin Cloud/Aerosol Optical Depths Data, Version 33
Data set id:
GLA11
DOI: 10.5067/ICESAT/GLAS/DATA224
This data set has been retired.
Version Summary
See https://nsidc.org/data/icesat/version-history
In this section
  • Rendering Links ...
  • Rendering Links ...

Overview

NOTE ON GLAS BINARY DATA: Access to all ICESat/GLAS binary data products at NSIDC DAAC was removed 01 August 2017. The Binary Data Subsetter also has been decommissioned. ICESat/GLAS data remain available in HDF5 format (GLAH11). The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) instrument on the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) provides global measurements of polar ice sheet elevation to discern changes in ice volume (mass balance) over time. Secondary objectives of GLAS are to measure sea ice roughness and thickness, cloud and atmospheric properties, land topography, vegetation canopy heights, ocean surface topography, and surface reflectivity. GLAS has a 1064 nm laser channel for surface altimetry and dense cloud heights, and a 532 nm lidar channel for the vertical distribution of clouds and aerosols. Level-2 thin cloud/aerosol optical depths data (GLA11) contain thin cloud and aerosol optical depths. A thin cloud is one that does not completely attenuate the lidar signal return, which generally corresponds to clouds with optical depths less than about 2.0. Each data granule has an associated browse product that users can quickly view to determine the general quality of the data in the granule. Browse products consist of image plots of key parameters and statistics. Data are in scaled integer binary format, big-endian (Unix) byte order.
Parameter(s):
CLOUD OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS
Platform(s):
ICESAT
Sensor(s):
ALTIMETERS
GLAS
Data Format(s):
Binary
Temporal Coverage:
  • 13 January 2003 to 13 January 2010
Temporal Resolution:
  • 1288 minute
Spatial Resolution:
  • 60 m to 70 m
  • 60 m to 70 m
Spatial Reference System(s):
Not Specified
Spatial Coverage:
  • N:
    86
    S:
    -86
    E:
    180
    W:
    -180
Blue outlined yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.

Data Access & Tools

This data set has been retired. Please contact user services if you have questions.

Documentation

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.
Read More
When will the legacy, on-premises archive be retired?
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.
Read More

How to Articles

Filter and order from a data set web page using the Data Access Tool
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:
Read More