NASA sentinel-1 Project

32,741 Sentinel-1 A/B SAR images were analyzed to determine annual melt duration for 105,432 glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas from 2017-2020. This collection, part of NASA's MEaSUREs program, also includes annual Antarctic ice velocity maps and multi-decadal ice front positions for 239 Greenland outlet glaciers. Data are derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical imagery from multiple international space agencies.

Use Cases

• Modeling glacier mass balance and meltwater runoff based on annual melt onset and freeze onset dates.
• Tracking ice sheet flow and discharge rates based on 6- and 12-day surface velocity estimates.
• Analyzing long-term glacier retreat based on digitized ice front positions spanning from 1972-1973 to 2020-2021.
• Calibrating and validating ice velocity models based on multi-sensor SAR and optical imagery mosaics.

Strengths

• Covers a large spatial scale, including 105,432 mapped glaciers in the HKH and the entire Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
• Integrates data from multiple high-resolution satellite sources, including Sentinel-1, ALOS PALSAR, TerraSAR-X, and Landsat.
• Provides multi-decadal temporal coverage for some regions, such as Greenland ice fronts from the 1970s to 2021.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality, resolution, and file structure require manual inspection after download.
• Temporal coverage varies by glacier and region, which may complicate consistent time-series analysis.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics and data formats must be inferred from the downloaded files.

Provenance

Source

NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program.

Collection Method

Analysis of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical satellite imagery time series.

Time Range

Varies by dataset; includes periods from 1972-1973 to 2020-2021.

Freshness

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Geography

Hindu Kush Himalayas, Antarctic Ice Sheet, Greenland Ice Sheet and periphery.