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Description

ATL07 contains along-track sea surface height and sea ice height for segments of variable lengths for all beams as well as fixed 10-meter segments for strong beams. Heights are also computed using the DDA-Bifurcation algorithm for strong beams. The data were acquired by the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) instrument on board the ICESat-2 observatory.

Version Description

Added starting along-track distance of sea-ice segment to main data group. Average along-track distance remains on product; Introduced lognormal distributions to be used as alternate expected waveform table; Implemented the option to process sea ice heights at half-stepping, 10-meter segment lengths; Introduced DDA-Bifurcation algorithm, which provides independently computed heights along with the ATL07 heights and helps detect and measure potential melt ponds; Updated algorithm to apply Dynamic Atmosphere Correction (DAC) as a geophysical correction; Introduced new fine-tracker algorithm to make it modular and introduce custom data groups to help with data handling and writing.

Product Summary

Platforms
ICESat-2
Instruments
ATLAS
Spatial Extent

N: 88 S: -88 E: 180 W: -180

Spatial Reference System(s)
WGS 84 (EPSG:4326)
Location
GLOBAL OCEAN
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
GEODETIC
Temporal Extent
2018-10-14 to Present
Temporal Resolution
91 Day
Concept ID
C3564876395-NSIDC_CPRD
Data State
ACTIVE
Number of Files/Granules
73210
Processing Level
3
Published
Science Keywords
Sea Ice Elevation

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Kwok, R., Petty, A., Cunningham, G., Markus, T., Hancock, D., Ivanoff, A., Wimert, J., Bagnardi, M., Kurtz, N., & the ICESat-2 Science Team. (2025). ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Sea Ice Height, Version 7 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/ATLAS/ATL07.007 Date Accessed: 2026-08-25

Documents

Publications Citing This Dataset

Filters
Title Year Author Topic
Anticipating CRISTAL: an exploration of multi-frequency satellite altimeter snow depth estimates over Arctic sea ice, 20182023 Landy, Jack C., de Rijke-Thomas, Claude, Nab, Carmen, Lawrence, Isobel, Glissenaar, Isolde A., Mallett, Robbie D. C., Fredensborg Hansen, Renee M., Petty, Alek, Tsamados, Michel, Macfarlane, Amy R., Braakmann-Folgmann, Anne Freeboard, Sea Ice Elevation
Lead and Floe Detection From CryoSat-2 Radar and ICESat-2 Laser Tilling, R., Egido, A., Harbeck, J., Kurtz, N., Petty, A., Ridout, A., Shepherd, A., Wimert, J., Yi, D. Sea Ice Concentration, Brightness Temperature, Sea Ice Motion, Snow Depth, Sea Ice Elevation, Freeboard
First arctic-wide assessment of SWOT swath altimetry with ICESat-2 over sea ice Muller, Felix L., Dettmering, Denise, Seitz, Florian Sea Ice Elevation, Sea Surface Height, Significant Wave Height
Snow effects on altimeter waveforms over sea ice in the Weddell Sea-Part Zhou, Lu, Skourup, Henriette, Stroeve, Julienne, Kacimi, Sahra, Arndt, Stefanie, Zhu, Weixin, Petty, Alek, Huang, Lanqing, Xu, Shiming Freeboard, Ice Depth/Thickness, Ice Roughness, Sea Ice Elevation, Snow Depth, VISIBLE IMAGERY, Glacier Elevation/Ice Sheet Elevation, Glacier Topography/Ice Sheet Topography, RADAR IMAGERY, Sea Ice Elevation, Snow Cover
Enhanced sea ice classification for ICESat-2 using combined unsupervised Liu, Wenxuan, Tsamados, Michel, Petty, Alek, Jin, Taoyong, Chen, Weibin, Stroeve, Julienne Sea Ice Concentration, Brightness Temperature, Sea Ice Elevation, Ice Extent, Ice Temperature, Terrain Elevation
SWOT Observations Over Sea Ice: A First Look Kacimi, Sahra, Jaruwatanadilok, Sermsak, Kwok, Ron Sea Ice Elevation, Sea Surface Height, Significant Wave Height
Snow depth estimation on leadless landfast ice using Cryo2Ice satellite observations Saha, Monojit, Stroeve, Julienne, Isleifson, Dustin, Yackel, John, Nandan, Vishnu, Landy, Jack Christopher, Lam, Hoi Ming Sea Ice Elevation
Sea ice concentration estimates from ICESat-2 linear ice fraction - Part Horvat, Christopher, Buckley, Ellen, Stewart, Madelyn Brightness Temperature, Sea Ice Concentration, Sea Ice Elevation
Seasonal snow depth dataset over flat terrains in the Northern Hemisphere based on ICESat-2 data from 2018 to 2020 Feng, Dongdong, Che, Tao, Wang, Guigang, Dai, Liyun, Gao, Liang, Jiang, Ye, Wang, Jing, Hu, Yanxing, Xiao, Lin, Shi, Yueling Sea Ice Elevation
On the statistical relationship between sea ice freeboard and C-band microwave backscattera case study with Sentinel-1 and Operation IceBridge Liu, Siqi, Xu, Shiming, Guo, Wenkai, Fan, Yanfei, Zhou, Lu, Landy, Jack, Johansson, Malin, Zhu, Weixin, Petty, Alek Glacier Elevation/Ice Sheet Elevation, Sea Ice Elevation, Sea Ice Elevation, Freeboard
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