NASA's EARTHDATA DISCOVERY

 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration                             April 2025 EARTHDATA DISCOVERY Open Access for Open Science                     GLIMS Database Advances Glacier Monitoring from Space           Using NASA’s Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) Glacier Database, researchers worldwide can map and monitor glaciers to assess climate trends, natural hazard risk, sea level rise, freshwater resource availability, and ecosystem health and stability.                   Explore more than 200,000 glaciers around the world. ➞                       Articles                 NOAA 21 Captures Dust Moving Across the United States Spring has been an unusually active period for dust storms over the Southwestern U.S., and imagery from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) help researchers monitor and track aerosol movement in near real-time.           Sea Ice Estimates Hit New Lows According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the Arctic sea ice extent maximum for 2025 was the lowest maximum in the satellite record (starting in 1979), and the Antarctic sea ice extent minimum for 2025 was effectively tied for second-lowest in the 47-year satellite record. Both sea ice extent estimates were based on passive microwave sea ice data archived at NASA’s NSIDC Data Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC).           Integrating DataTree into Xarray Xarray is an open-source Python library for handling large, multi-dimensional datasets. Recently, NSIDC DAAC played a key role in integrating DataTree into Xarray, improving the management of hierarchical data structures. This update simplifies data access, making it more efficient for researchers working with complex Earth science data, and streamlines workflows, ultimately enhancing productivity for users handling large-scale scientific datasets.           Promoting Open Science at Arctic Science Summit Week At the 2025 International Arctic Science Committee’s annual conference, many sessions and presentations were led by scientists from NSIDC DAAC, including “Making Arctic Science Equitable and Accessible to All Through Open Science” chaired by scientists Walt Meier and Andy Barrett. Other sessions highlighted and referenced cryospheric data sets archived by NSIDC DAAC and discussed sea ice data issues and coordination between satellite data, field observations, and modeling.                   Webinars & Events                     Accelerating Scientific Discovery through Exploratory and Open Data Access via OPeNDAP in the Cloud Apr 23, 2025           The Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OPeNDAP) supports efficient access to NASA’s archival and hierarchical scientific datasets in the cloud—specifically those in HDF5, HDF4, and HDF4-EOS2 formats. Subset and retrieve data via OPeNDAP's Hyrax data server access cloud data directly using DMR++ sidecar files for efficient S3-based workflows.                     NASA CSDA Program Vendor Focus—ICEYE US April 30, 2025 Learn how to discover, access, and work with ICEYE's high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) products and understand how these data complement NASA Earth science data holdings across environmental monitoring, climate research, disaster response, and infrastructure assessment.               Monitoring Global Terrestrial Surface Water Height using Remote Sensing May 13 and 15, 2025 This two-part introductory training, delivered in English and Spanish, will focus on introducing Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) freshwater data products and their applications for water resources and disaster management.               Introduction to the Integration of Animal Tracking and Remote Sensing May 20 and 22, 2025 NASA data can be used to characterize the environmental parameters that infer the habitats that animals use. This training course will provide participants with an overview of animal tracking sensors, NASA’s history of animal tracking, and the types of remote sensing data that can be paired with animal telemetry.               Sea Level Change Tools for Planning and Decision Support June 10 and 17, 2025 This two-part introductory webinar series will focus on NASA products and tools available to assess historical sea-level rise, access and understand projections of sea level, and investigate impacts.               Expand Your View of Earth with NASA Worldview Recorded April 16, 2025 Learn how to use Worldview, a satellite imagery mapping tool that provides access to over 1,000 visualized data products—many available within three hours of a satellite observation—to explore Earth's interconnected processes and events.                         New Data, Tutorials, & Resources           New NASA Earth Science Data NASA’s archive of unrestricted data continues to grow. Read summaries of the latest data products, services, and tools released over the past month.           Navigate Near Real-Time Archives for Soil Moisture Data As a requirement of being a Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for Earth observation (LANCE) instance, NASA’s NISDC DAAC provides redundant data access for Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) near real-time data. While this is beneficial to ensure uninterrupted access to the data, it can create confusion for users. The article describes each archive and why users might choose one over the other.                     Data Alerts and Outages           SEDAC Data and Information No Longer Available In March 2025, data and information from NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) stopped being updated and are no longer available through Earthdata.           ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 Level 1 ScanSAR Product Released In partnership with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), NASA has begun releasing datasets mirrored from JAXA's Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 (ALOS-2) archive. The first data in the collection include synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery of North and South America as well as neighboring regions dating back to 2014.           ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Along Track Coastal and Nearshore Bathymetry Dataset Released This product contains global along-track coastal and nearshore bathymetry, consisting of refraction-corrected seafloor and sea surface heights (orthometric and ellipsoidal heights and instantaneous depths), as well as associated uncertainties. The data are derived from ATLAS/ICESat-2 L2A Global Geolocated Photon Data (ATL03).           SAGE III/ISS Version 6.0 Product Released V6.0 includes algorithmic improvements, updated ancillary inputs, and the convergence of data products previously available only in separate files/outlets. Traditional SAGE products are now packaged with the newly developed derived products aerosol/cloud flag and particle size distribution parameters.           VIIRS Version 2 Fire Light Detection Algorithm-2 Parameter Data Products Released The VIIRS Version 2 release includes annual data products from both the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite and the NOAA-20 satellite. Enhanced visible band observation in these datasets can be used to detect smaller and cooler fires.                   Worldview Images of the Week           Fires in South Korea Unusually warm springtime temperatures and strong winds fueled wildfires that swept across parts of South Korea in March 2025. View an animation of imagery captured by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) to see the rapid eastward spread of the fires.           Cloud-free View of the United Kingdom and Ireland View a rare cloud-free day in the United Kingdom and Ireland courtesy of satellite imagery from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) platform.           Flooding in the Midwest and Southeast U.S. Extensive flooding hit parts of the United States in April, with some areas seeing 10-15 inches (25-38 centimeters) of rainfall in less than a week. View comparison imagery from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Image Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra platform.                 NASA's Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program oversees the life cycle of NASA’s Earth science data and seeks to maximize the scientific return from missions and experiments.                 Contact Us                 NASA | 8800 Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt, MD 20771