GLAS/ICESat L2 Global Land Surface Altimetry Data, Version 34

NOTE ON GLAS BINARY DATA: Access to all ICESat/GLAS binary data products at NSIDC DAAC was removed 01 August 2017.The Binary Data Subsetter also has been decommissioned.ICESat/GLAS data remain available in HDF5 format (GLAH14).

The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) instrument on the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) provides global measurements of polar ice sheet elevation to discern changes in ice volume (mass balance) over time. Secondary objectives of GLAS are to measure sea ice roughness and thickness, cloud and atmospheric properties, land topography, vegetation canopy heights, ocean surface topography, and surface reflectivity.

GLAS has a 1064 nm laser channel for surface altimetry and dense cloud heights, and a 532 nm lidar channel for the vertical distribution of clouds and aerosols.

This level-2 altimetry product (GLA14) provides surface elevations for land. Data also include the laser footprint gelocation and reflectance, as well as geodetic, instrument, and atmospheric corrections for range measurements.

Each data granule has an associated browse product that users can quickly view to determine the general quality of the data in the granule. Browse products consist of image plots of key parameters and statistics. Data are in scaled integer binary format, big-endian (Unix) byte order.

ICESat/GLAS二进制数据说明：2017年8月1日起，美国国家冰雪数据中心分布式主动存档中心（NSIDC DAAC）下架了所有ICESat/GLAS二进制数据产品的获取渠道，二进制数据子集工具（Binary Data Subsetter）也已停止服务。目前ICESat/GLAS数据仍可通过HDF5格式（GLAH14）获取。

搭载于冰、云与陆地高程卫星（Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite, ICESat）的地球科学激光测高系统（Geoscience Laser Altimeter System, GLAS）可开展极地冰盖高程的全球测量，以识别冰体体积（物质平衡）随时间的变化。GLAS的次要科学目标包括测量海冰粗糙度与厚度、云与大气特性、陆地地形、植被冠层高度、海洋表面地形以及地表反射率。

GLAS配备1064纳米激光通道，用于地表测高与厚云高度测量；同时搭载532纳米激光雷达通道，用于获取云与气溶胶的垂直分布信息。

该二级测高产品（GLA14）可提供陆地表面高程数据。数据还包含激光光斑的地理位置与反射率，以及测距所需的大地测量、仪器与大气校正参数。

每个数据粒均配有配套的浏览产品，用户可通过其快速查看该数据粒的整体数据质量。浏览产品包含关键参数与统计信息的图像绘图。数据采用缩放整数二进制格式，字节序为大端（Unix）格式。