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This How to guide outlines the steps for properly importing, projecting and visualizing HDF and NetCDF files in ArcMap. A couple of things to note before you start:
It is only relevant to ESRI ArcMap 10.5 and later versions. If you are running ArcMap 10.4.1 there is a patch you can download. If you are working in older versions of ArcMap then please note there is a workaround for SMAP data sets, further details at the bottom of this article.
This article describes the actions to perform in order work with NSIDC-0116 in ArcGIS. At the time of writing, this tutorial is relevant for ArcMap10.5 and earlier. The following steps will show you how to prepare the binary files for import, format conversion, geolocation/projection, and display options for gridded vectors.
Directions for Importing Bamber Greenland DEM, Ice Thickness (thick_5km_corrected), and / or Bedrock Thickness (bed_5km_corrected) into ArcGIS. In this example, we'll bring the Bamber Greenland DEM (surface_5km_corrected) into ArcGIS, but the same methodology applies for importing the Ice Thickness (thick_5km_corrected), or Bedrock Thickness (bed_5km_corrected) files into ArcGIS.
Data product: Greenland 5 km DEM, Ice Thickness, and Bedrock Elevation Grids
These are directions for importing the grnlnd_dem_wgs84.dat (a flat binary with a 2-byte integer) into ArcGIS.
SMAP Ancillary data sets are used to produce SMAP Level-1, -2, -3, and -4 standard data products. Several of these ancillary data sets are produced by external organizations, such as NOAA, the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), and NASA Land Data Assimilation Systems (LDAS).
There are two tricky steps in reading binary data in FORTRAN. First you must open the file with the proper mode, then you must correctly read and interpret the data values. There is no one correct way to do either of these steps. It often takes a fair bit of trial and error to get it right. It is therefore essential that you have test data to read with documented examples of known values.
There are python scripts available for reading and quickly visualizing the daily and monthly snow depth and snow water equivalent ASCII files from the Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC) Daily Snow Depth Analysis Data. They are available from the following GitHub repository, which includes further details on how to use the scripts:
https://github.com/nsidc/nsidc0447-scripts
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:
https://github.com/nsidc/nsidc0756-scripts
If you need to reproject the IMS 1 km or 4 km GeoTIFFs to geographic latitude/longitude, we recommend using the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL). Instructions for downloading and installing it can be found here:
https://gdal.org/download.html
Below are instructions for using GDAL directly in the command line or in a python script.
The "Snow Depth and Snow Cover Data Exploration” Jupyter Notebook provides Python code to access and compare coincident snow data across in-situ, airborne, and satellite platforms from NASA's SnowEx, ASO, and MODIS data sets, respectively.
Please see the NSIDC-Data-Tutorials GitHub repository (https://github.com/nsidc/NSIDC-Data-Tutorials) for more information on how to access and run the Jupyter Notebook.
There are external Jupyter notebooks available that can be used to download user-defined spatial subsets of the following MEaSUREs GrIMP products:
This article walks through installing Earthdata Download, downloading data, and addressing issues that users may encounter when using the application. The Earthdata Download application is a download option for users of Earthdata Search or those of NSIDC DAAC's Data Access Tool.
Learn the basic steps for using OpenAltimetry to browse and download ICESat-2 data products.
Learn the basic steps for using OpenAltimetry to browse and download ICESat data.
This tutorial outlines the steps for visualizing data in EASE-Grid/EASE-Grid2 projection and NetCDF format, using the free software, Panoply.
The Panoply data viewer can be downloaded from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies web page here. This tutorial uses a NetCDF file from the Lagrangian Snow Distrbutions for Sea Ice Applications data set as an example.
The Sea Ice Index and the Arctic Sea Ice News Analysis (ASINA) Web pages provide images derived from passive microwave satellite data that depict the most recent daily sea ice conditions.
Last Updated February 2018
The following table lists the tools and services available for ICESat-2 data.
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).OverviewThe NASA ICESat, Operation IceBridge, and ICESat-2 missions share a common objective of better characterizing changes across Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves, and sea ice through detailed surface elevation measurements.
Yes, it is an element of GLAH06, GLAH12, GLAH13, GLAH14, and GLAH15.
This guide shows you how to:Launch a free Amazon EC2 virtual server in the cloud (Free Tier eligible)Securely connect to it from your computerPrepare the instance for working with NSIDC DAAC Earthdata Cloud dataTransfer files between your computer and the instanceNo prior cloud experience needed — this walkthrough is designed for first-time users!