d032·dataset

Heights of lakes & rivers

ICESat-2 ATL13 Inland Water Surface Heights

NSIDC DAAC ATL13 cloud-native variable (segment-based by water body) 91-day repeat HDF5 hydrologywater-resources

Per-water-body height time-series for lakes, reservoirs, rivers. Complements SWOT for narrow rivers + small lakes SWOT misses.

ICESat-2 ATL13 Inland Water Surface Heights

Per-water-body height time-series for lakes, reservoirs, rivers. Complements SWOT for narrow rivers + small lakes SWOT misses.

Access

Python (earthaccess): short_name='ATL13'; or use icepyx
Portal: https://nsidc.org/data/atl13

Gotchas

Reservoir-specific; the water mask is reference-based, not derived per-scene
Wind + ice cover affect retrieval; check quality flags
Use ATL15 for gridded ice-sheet change

Other datasets: d043

Sources

https://nsidc.org/data/atl13

The access details, code, and sources below are kept in the original English for technical accuracy.

Quick access (cloud-direct)

atl13_access.py

import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ATL13",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream from NSIDC DAAC

Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.

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