NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) 10 meter Composite Digital Elevation Model, Arctic and Boreal North America, 2000-2019

### Overview

New remote sensing methods and instruments for topographic mapping have greatly increased the availability of gridded elevation datasets in the high northern latitudes (> 60 degrees North (N)) which currently lack a singular, extensive high-resolution elevation dataset (such as the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) for low- to mid-latitudes). Our work focused on creating a ~10 meter (m) gap-free digital surface model (DSM) composite for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) study domain which covers Arctic and Boreal regions of North America. Existing publicly-available datasets covering this domain include Alaska airborne Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR), ArcticDEM, Advances Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) World 3D 30m, SRTM, Canada Digital Elevation Model (DEM) (CDEM), Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM), and Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010). None of the existing datasets provide full (gap-free) coverage over the entire study domain at moderate- to high-spatial resolution. When attempting to simply mosaic these source datasets together complications arise due to different datums, acquisition timeframes, and inherent artifacts. We use a combination of Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) and the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline (ASP) to process the source datasets and combine them into a single composite Digital Surface Model (DSM) for the entire NASA ABoVE study domain at approximately 10m spatial resolution. GDAL is used to transform all datasets so that they reference the same horizontal and vertical reference frames. ASP is used to co-register and composite the datasets using a prioritization scheme. Vertical accuracy of the new composite DSM is assessed using NASA airborne lidar (LVIS).

### Access

Data files can be accessed via: [https://arcticdata.io/data/10.18739/A2057CT8Q/](https://arcticdata.io/data/10.18739/A2057CT8Q/)