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Description
This data set, part of the NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, contains seasonal (winter) ice sheet-wide velocity maps for Greenland. The maps are derived from Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data obtained by the Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) RADARSAT-1, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS), and the German Aerospace Center's (DLR) TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X (TSX/TDX) satellites, as well as from the European Space Agency's (ESA) C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar data from Copernicus Sentinel-1A and -1B.
For Version 2, all velocity maps underwent quality control screening to remove erroneous data points. In addition, the following measures were performed:
Added new map for 2009/2010.
Added ALOS fine-beam data to improve coverage in 2006/2007, 2007/2008, and 2008/2009.
Corrected a substantial error on Rink glacier where the time interval was off by a factor of 2.
Improved baseline fits for consistency in the interior of the ice sheet.
Updated error estimates to better represent the average behavior of the data.
Added/updated shapefiles of satellite tracks for 2014 to 2018 winters.
Added browse files for 2014 to 2018 winters.
Updated the velocity magnitude (vv) file name.
Changed the missing data value for the velocity magnitude (vv) files to -1 and set it as the attribute in all files.
WGS 84 / NSIDC Sea Ice Polar Stereographic North (EPSG:3413)
Location
GREENLAND
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2012-11-10 to 2013-04-05
Temporal Resolution
Varies
Concept ID
C3291179132-NSIDC_CPRD
Data State
COMPLETE
Number of Files/Granules
26
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Ice Velocity
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.
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Citation Copied
Joughin, I., Smith, B., Howat, I., & Scambos, T. (2015). MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Sheet Velocity Map from InSAR Data, Version 2 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/OC7B04ZM9G6Q Date Accessed: 2026-10-07
@misc{joughin_smith_howat_scambos_2015,
title={MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Sheet Velocity Map from InSAR Data, Version 2},
url={http://nsidc.org/data/NSIDC-0478/versions/2},
DOI={10.5067/OC7B04ZM9G6Q},
publisher={NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center},
author={Joughin, Ian and Smith, Ben and Howat, Ian and Scambos, Ted},
year={2015},
}
Joughin, I., Smith, B., Howat, I., & Scambos, T. (2015). MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Sheet Velocity Map from InSAR Data, Version 2 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/OC7B04ZM9G6Q Date Accessed: 2026-10-07
Joughin, Ian, et al. “MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Sheet Velocity Map from InSAR Data, Version 2.” NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center, 2015, https://doi.org/10.5067/OC7B04ZM9G6Q. Date Accessed: 2026-10-07
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