Data Products — File Listing
Open Polar Radar Data Products
Click here for acknowledgements, citing, and reporting data usage.
Click here for education and materials for the general public.
The Open Polar Radar organization seeks to establish a software ecosystem to consolidate polar radar software and services and make the associated datasets standardized and searchable. Open Polar Radar collaborators include (email opr@openpolarradar.org if interested in joining):
- Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) Glaciology and Sea Ice Groups
- British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
- Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX)
- Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECs)
- Center for Remote Sensing and Integrated Systems (CReSIS)
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)
- National Institute for Polar Research (NIPR)
- Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI)
- Stanford Radio Glaciology
- University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG)
- University of Washington (UW)
Open Polar Radar data products are located here. The data products are divided into:
- Accumulation Radar: Includes CReSIS data.
- Ku-Band Radar Altimeter: Includes CReSIS data.
- Radar Depth Sounder: Includes UTIG MARFA/HICARS data and CReSIS data.
- Snow Radar: Includes CReSIS data.
- Support Files for all radars: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/opr_support/ and ftp://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/opr_support/
- Sea Level Rise Maps
We also make several tools available for download:
- Open Polar Server: Online Browser/Search Tool (git repository)
- Open Polar Radar Toolbox: Matlab Toolbox (git repository)
Raw data is available upon request via https, Globus, or mail. Please send an inquiry to opr@openpolarradar.org with a detailed list of seasons or flight lines needed.
For large amounts of data, including raw data, please send a hard drive (internal 2.5” or 3.5” SATA) or USB flash drive and we will transfer the requested data. In most cases, we will require shipping be prepaid.
Please direct questions, suggestions, and error notifications to opr@openpolarradar.org.
Acknowledgements, Citing, and Reporting Data Use
Changes coming soon to this section to include information about obtaining digital object identifiers (DOI), research organization registry (ROR) identifiers, and more granular funding information about each dataset.
To cite the CReSIS data please use the following:
CReSIS. 2024. REPLACE_WITH_RADAR_NAME Data, Lawrence, Kansas, USA. Digital Media. http://data.cresis.ku.edu/.
To acknowledge the use of the CReSIS data, please note Kansas, NSF and NASA contributions (all data products have been generated using tools generated with Kansas, NASA, and NSF funding so regardless of the season please acknowledge their contribution). For example:
We acknowledge the use of data and/or data products from CReSIS generated with support from the University of Kansas, NASA Operation IceBridge grant NNX16AH54G, NSF grants ACI-1443054, OPP-1739003, and IIS-1838230, Lilly Endowment Incorporated, and Indiana METACyt Initiative.
To cite the UTIG data (2022/2023 Antarctica BaslerMKB rds seasons) please use the following:
Coming Soon (please email opr@openpolarradar.org)
To acknowledge the use of the UTIG data (2022/2023 Antarctica BaslerMKB rds seasons)
Coming Soon (please email opr@openpolarradar.org)
To cite usage of the Open Polar Radar Toolbox please use the following:
Open Polar Radar. (2024). opr (Version 3.0.1) [Computer software]. https://gitlab.com/openpolarradar/opr/. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5683959
To acknowledge the use of the Open Polar Radar Toolbox, please note Kansas, NSF and NASA contributions. For example:
We acknowledge the use of software from Open Polar Radar generated with support from the University of Kansas, NASA grants 80NSSC20K1242 and 80NSSC21K0753, and NSF grants OPP-2027615, OPP-2019719, OPP-1739003, IIS-1838230, RISE-2126503, RISE-2127606, and RISE-2126468.
Use of the sea level rise maps: Please acknowledge the Center for Remote Sensing and Integrated Systems (CReSIS) and include the URL where the data are found. If it is appropriate for your work, you may cite one or both of our published articles regarding the work that went into generating these data. The references to these articles are given below:
Li, Xingong, Rex J. Rowley, John C. Kostelnick, David Braaten, Joshua Meisel, and Kalonie Hulbutta. 2009. "GIS Analysis of Global Inundation Impacts from Sea Level Rise." Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 75, no. 7: 807-818.
Rowley, Rex J., John C. Kostelnick, David Braaten, Xingong Li, and Joshua Meisel. 2007. "Risk of Rising Sea Level to Population and Land Area." Eos Transactions 88, no. 9 (27 February 2007): 105, 107.
Accumulation Radar Data Products
The accumulation radar data set contains L1B Geolocated Radar Echo Strength Profile Images over Greenland, Canada, and Antarctica taken with the CReSIS accumulation radars since 2002.
Documentation (includes examples to load data)
PDF: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/accum/accum_readme.pdf
MS Word: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/accum/accum_readme.doc
L1B Data Products (includes KML flight lines for browsing)
FTP: ftp://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/accum/
HTTP: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/accum/
Old Data
Not all field season data products have been output in the new format. 2002_Greenland_P3, 2003_Greenland_P3, 2006_Greenland_TO, and 2009_Antarctica_TO are available at ftp://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/accum/old_format/. 2010_Greenland_P3 is only available at http://www.nsidc.org/ . We are actively working on updating 2009_Antarctica_TO and 2010_Greenland_P3. No other seasons are currently planned to be updated.
Ku-band Radar Altimeter Data Products
The Ku-band radar data set contains L1B Geolocated Radar Echo Strength Profile Images over Greenland, Canada, the Arctic Ocean, and Antarctica taken with the CReSIS Ku-band radar since 2009.
Documentation (includes examples to load data)
PDF: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/kuband/kuband_readme.pdf
MS Word: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/kuband/kuband_readme.doc
L1B Data Products (includes KML flight lines for browsing)
FTP: ftp://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/kuband/
HTTP: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/kuband/
Old Data
Not all field season data products have been output in the new format. These old files are only available at http://www.nsidc.org/ . We are actively working on updating all of the old seasons to the new format.
Radar Depth Sounder Data Products
The radar depth sounder (RDS) data set contains L1B Geolocated Radar Echo Strength Profile Images, L2 Ice Thickness, Ice Surface, and Ice Bottom elevations, and L3 Gridded Ice Thickness, Ice Surface, and Ice Bottom elevations over Greenland, Canada, and Antarctica taken with the UTIG (in progress -- currently limited to COLDEX data only) and CReSIS radar depth sounders since 1993.
Documentation (includes examples to load data)
L1B, L2 Data Products (includes KML flight lines for browsing and CSV files for all seasons)
FTP: ftp://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/rds/
HTTP: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/rds/
Old Data
Not all field season data products have been output in the new format. These old files are still available at ftp://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/rds/old_format/. There is currently no plan to update these mission.
Snow Radar Data Products
The snow radar data set contains L1B Geolocated Radar Echo Strength Profile Images over Greenland, Canada, the Arctic Ocean, and Antarctica taken with the CReSIS snow radar since 2009.
Documentation (includes examples to load data)
PDF: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/snow/snow_readme.pdf
MS Word: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/snow/snow_readme.doc
L1B Data Products (includes KML flight lines for browsing)
FTP: ftp://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/snow/
HTTP: https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/snow/
Old Data
Not all field season data products have been output in the new format. These old files are only available at http://www.nsidc.org/. We are actively working on updating all of the old seasons to the new format.
Sea Level Rise Maps
Sea level rise maps generated as a part of the CReSIS PRISM project.
https://data.cresis.ku.edu/research/data/sea_level_rise/index.html