NASA 2017_AN_NASA Project: Airborne Lidar Elevation and Waveform Data for Polar Ice

Operation IceBridge-funded aircraft surveys collected spot elevation measurements and corresponding waveforms of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, as well as the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The data were acquired using NASA's Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) instrumentation. This dataset includes surface grain size estimates for snow and ice derived from waveform measurements over Greenland.

Use Cases

• Modeling ice sheet elevation change based on precise airborne topographic measurements.
• Estimating snow and ice surface grain size based on lidar waveform data.
• Analyzing sea ice freeboard and thickness based on spot elevation data over polar regions.
• Calibrating satellite altimetry data based on high-resolution airborne lidar surveys.

Strengths

• Data originates from NASA's Operation IceBridge, a major airborne survey campaign.
• Includes complementary datasets for near-infrared waveforms and surface grain size estimates.
• Covers multiple critical polar regions: Arctic, Antarctic, Greenland, and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NASA Operation IceBridge, Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM)

Collection Method

Acquired via aircraft survey campaigns using ATM instrumentation.

Time Range

null

Freshness

unknown

Geography

Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, Greenland ice sheet, Antarctic Peninsula, West Antarctic region