Ground height tracked monthly near Greenland's Summit Station, from ground GPS surveys
What it measures. Monthly readings of exactly how high the ice surface sits near Summit Station in central Greenland, taken with GPS along a fixed survey line.
How it's made. Collected on the ground by people driving a GPS unit along a set route, deliberately lined up with the paths that the ICESat and ICESat-2 satellites fly over.
How & where you'd use it. Serves as a ground-truth check for satellite ice-elevation measurements, helping confirm whether the satellites are reading Greenland's surface correctly.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2006-08-24 → 2025-04-02
- Measured byGROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS (GPS)
- Processing levelLevel Not provided
- Spatial extent-38.58567, 72.57862, -38.47419, 72.64822
- FormatsRINEX, CSV
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
This is a data set of monthly Global Positioning System (GPS) surface elevation and position data gathered along a defined survey transect to the west of Summit Station, Greenland. The data transect is aligned with ICESat and ICESat-2 reference ground tracks (RGTs) to support ground comparison efforts.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="IS2TGPSSS",
version="1",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRDBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
- Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
- Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
- A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
- Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- ICESat/ICESat-2 Traverse: Monthly GPS Surface Elevation Data at Summit Station, Greenland, Version 1 VIEW RELATED INFORMATION