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Description

ATL08 contains along-track estimates of terrain height, canopy height, and canopy cover, as well as beam and reference parameters. Data were acquired by the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) instrument on board the ICESat-2 observatory.

Version Description

Removed canopy finding flag in ATL08 regions 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11; Incorporated the CAB delineation of a ground surface to remove noise bands from the ATL03 data product prior to DRAGANN; Aligned the weak beam to the strong beam from ATL09 based on along-track distance for CAB profile cloud filtering; Updated description for MSW flag; Incorporated a single surface search to improve ground finding; Updated parameters on the quality_ph flag to allow certain photons as input into ATL08; Added a terrain and canopy quality score; Added steps for identifying whether photons are from a single surface or multi-surface; Added ground finding correction based on a priori DEM bias; Added extension of nighttime canopy photons, above FINALGROUND surface; Added steps to reject photons in the presence of fog or low-lying clouds.

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
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
GEODETIC
Temporal Extent
2018-10-14 to Present
Temporal Resolution
91 Day
Concept ID
C3565574177-NSIDC_CPRD
Data State
ACTIVE
Number of Files/Granules
430404
Processing Level
3
Published
Science Keywords
Terrain Elevation ,
Vegetation Height

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

Neuenschwander, A., Pitts, K., Jelley, B., Robbins, J., Markel, J., Popescu, S., Nelson, R., Harding, D., Pederson, D., Klotz, B., & Sheridan, R. (2025). ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Land and Vegetation Height, Version 7 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/ATLAS/ATL08.007 Date Accessed: 2026-10-17

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Publications Citing This Dataset

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Title Authors Year Referenced Datasets
Water level detection in coastal areas with spaceborne LiDAR: accuracy assessment of GEDI and ICESat-2 data
  • Parra, Adriana, Belhadj-Aissa, S., Christensen, A., Fagherazzi, S., Simard, M.
SWOT Satellite Observations of the Kakhovka Dam Break Flood Highlight Limitations of Outburst Flood Models
  • Lehnigk, K. E., Pavelsky, T. M., Lang, K. A.
Quantitative Assessment of Cloud-Penetration Capability for Spaceborne Photon-Counting Lidar in Surface Observations
  • Liu, Xinyuan, Zheng, Huiying, Zhang, Zhiyu, Yang, Jian, Zhao, Pufan, Li, Song, Ma, Yue, Wu, Songhua
Mapping Forest Canopy Height via Self-Attention Multisource Feature Fusion and a Blending-Based Heterogeneous Ensemble Model
  • Tian, Jing, Zhang, Pinghao, Dong, Pinliang, Shan, Wei, Guo, Ying, Li, Dan, Wang, Qiang, Mei, Xiaodan
Synergistic use of ICESat-2 lidar data and Sentinel-2 imagery for assessing hurricane-driven forest changes
  • Gautam, Ajay, Narine, Lana L., Anderson, Christopher J., Cristan, Richard
Temporal and Spatial Assessment of Glacier Elevation Change in the
  • Wang, Qihua, Yang, Yuande, Hu, Jiayu, Zhang, Jianglong, Li, Zuqiang, Wang, Yuechen
River Avulsion Precursors Encoded in Alluvial Ridge Geometry
  • Gearon, J. H., Edmonds, D. A.
Lava tube system development defined by multispectral imaging and InSAR: The case of the 2024 eruption of fernandina volcano (Galapagos)
  • Hrysiewicz, Alexis, LaFemina, Peter C., Bell, Andrew, Galetto, Federico, Vallejo, Silvia, Bernard, Benjamin, Holohan, Eoghan P.
Rules of river avulsion change downstream
  • Gearon, James H., Martin, Harrison K., DeLisle, Clarke, Barefoot, Eric A., Mohrig, David, Paola, Chris, Edmonds, Douglas A.
Stage-Slope-Discharge Relationships Upstream of River Confluences
  • Liu, Jun, BauerGottwein, Peter, Frias, Monica Coppo, Musaeus, Aske Folkmann, Christoffersen, Linda, Jiang, Liguang
Signal Photon Extraction Method for ICESat-2 Data Using Slope and
  • Gu, Linyu, Fan, Dazhao, Ji, Song, Gong, Zhihui, Li, Dongzi, Dong, Yang
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