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Terrestrial Hydrosphere Data Access and Tools

NASA data examine many characteristics of the liquid and frozen water and the dynamic processes they are part of across Earth’s landscape. Our datasets and tools help researchers translate these interconnected data points into actionable knowledge.

Dataset	Geographic Region	Temporal Extent	Data Format	Potential Application Areas	Related Subtopics
ALOS PALSAR High Resolution Radiometric Terrain Corrected Product	Global	2006-03-23 to 2011-04-22		Detailed wetland classification and monitoring	glaciers/ ice sheets, surface water
GLDAS Noah Land Surface Model L4 3 hourly 0.25 x 0.25 degree V2.1	Global Land	2000-01-01 to Present	NetCDF	Hydrological cycle research and water resource management Flood forecasting and monitoring	ground water, surface water
GPM IMERG Final Precipitation L3 Half Hourly 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree V07	Global	1998-01-01 to Present	HDF5	High-resolution precipitation monitoring globally Extreme rainfall event detection and analysis Hydrological modeling and flood forecasting	surface water
MERRA-2 tavg1_2d_flx_Nx: 2d,1-Hourly,Time-Averaged,Single-Level,Assimilation,Surface Flux Diagnostics 0.625 x 0.5 degree V5.12.4 (M2T1NXFLX)	Global	1980-01-01 to Present	NetCDF	Surface energy balance studies and monitoring Evaporation and precipitation pattern analysis Hydrological cycle component analysis	snow/ ice
NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Global 1 arc second V003	Global Land	2000-02-11 to 2000-02-21	HGT	Hydrological modeling and watershed delineation Flood risk assessment	surface water
OPERA Surface Displacement from Sentinel-1 validated product (Version 1)	Global	2016-07-01 to Present	NetCDF-4 XML PNG Zarr	Ground subsidence monitoring in urban areas and infrastructure Aquifer depletion impact assessment	glaciers/ ice sheets, ground water
SENTINEL-1A_SLC	Global	2014-04-03 to Present		Interferometric analysis for surface deformation detection Coherence-based change detection Polarimetric analysis for target characterization Development of advanced SAR processing algorithms Time-series analysis for subtle change detection	glaciers/ ice sheets, snow/ ice, surface water
SENTINEL-1B_SLC	Global	2016-04-25 to 2021-12-24		High-resolution deformation mapping with interferometry Coherence analysis for subtle change detection Polarimetric target characterization Glacier velocity measurement and ice monitoring Time-series analysis for seasonal change patterns	glaciers/ ice sheets, snow/ ice, surface water
Sentinel-1C Dual Polarization High Resolution Ground Range Detected Product	Global	2025-01-01 to Present	SAFE	Wetland extent mapping and flood monitoring	glaciers/ ice sheets, surface water

Terrestrial Hydrosphere Datasets

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Dataset Sort descending	Version	Platforms	Instruments	Temporal Extent	Spatial Extent	Data Format
SnowEx20 Laser Snow Microstructure Specific Surface Area Data V001	1	GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS	IRIS, IceCube	2020-01-27 to 2020-02-12	N: 39.06417 S: 39.0087 E: -108.00312 W: -108.22143	PNG, CSV
SnowEx20 Raw Near Surface Snow Temperature Profile Time Series V001	1	GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS	CAMERAS, THERMOMETERS, TIR	2020-02-05 to 2020-02-12	N: 39.036349 S: 39.006 E: -108.17523 W: -108.215629	PNG, JPEG, BMP, Excel, ASCII
SnowEx20 SnowMicroPen (SMP) Raw Penetration Force Profiles V001	1	GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS	SMP	2020-01-28 to 2020-02-12	N: 39.0541 S: 39.0139 E: -108.003 W: -108.2201	PNG, Binary, CSV
SnowEx20 Time Series Snow Pit Measurements V002	2	GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS	A2 Photonic_WISe, GPS, MICROSCOPES, SNOW DENSITY CUTTER, THERMOMETERS	2019-10-24 to 2020-05-20	N: 44.30455 S: 35.85794 E: -105.54616 W: -120.29897	PDF, JPEG, CSV, Excel
SnowEx21 Time Series Snow Pits V001	1	GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS	A2 Photonic_WISe, GPS, SNOW DENSITY CUTTER, THERMOMETERS	2020-11-16 to 2021-05-27	N: 47.0607 S: 37.9071 E: -105.86093 W: -116.12351	CSV, Excel, JPEG
SnowEx23 Apr23 IOP Snow Pit Measurements V001	1	GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS	A2 Photonic_WISe, GPS, MICROSCOPES, SNOW DENSITY CUTTER, THERMOMETERS	2023-04-01 to 2023-04-18	N: 65.16124 S: 63.8631 E: -145.72673 W: -147.72499	CSV
SnowEx23 Mar23 Snow Pit Measurements V001	1	GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS	A2 Photonic_WISe, GPS, MICROSCOPES, SNOW DENSITY CUTTER, THERMOMETERS	2022-03-07 to 2023-03-16	N: 70.08434 S: 64.69925 E: -147.48583 W: -149.59716	CSV, Excel, JPEG, PDF
SnowEx23 Oct22 IOP Snow Pits and Substrate Conditions at Freeze Up V001	1	GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS	GPS, MICROSCOPES, SWE Sampler, THERMOMETERS	2022-10-22 to 2022-10-27	N: 70.08434 S: 64.69925 E: -147.48583 W: -149.59716	CSV, Excel, JPEG
Snowmelt Timing Maps Derived from MODIS for North America, Version 2, 2001-2018	2	Terra	MODIS	2001-01-01 to 2018-12-31	N: 90 S: 10 E: 0 W: -180	GeoTIFF
Stream Flow Daily Data: USGS (FIFE)	1	SURFACE WATER WEIR	STILLING WELL	1979-04-01 to 1988-09-02	N: 40 S: 39 E: -95 W: -97	multiple

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Terrestrial Hydrosphere Data Tools

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Tool Sort descending	Description	Services
ASF MapReady	Terrain-correct, geocode, and apply polarimetric decompositions to multi-pol SAR data	Processing
CASEI	The Catalog of Archived Suborbital Earth Science Investigations (CASEI) is a comprehensive inventory of contextual information for NASA's Earth Science airborne and field campaigns.	Search and Discovery, Cataloging
CyAN File Search	The CyAN File Search tool allows users to choose an area over the continental United States and Alaska to retrieve cyanobacteria datasets archived by the Cyanobacteria Assessment Network (CyAN) project.	Analysis, Search and Discovery, Visualization
FLOOD	The FLOOD viewer facilitates the use and evaluation of LANCE flood products by allowing the user to browse globally and over time, and to compare to other flood products.	Monitoring Natural Events, Search and Discovery, Visualization
Hydrocron	Hydrocron is an API that repackages hydrology datasets from SWOT into formats that make time-series analysis easier.	Subsetting, Visualization
Panoply	Panoply is a cross-platform application that plots geo-referenced and other arrays from netCDF, HDF, GRIB, and other datasets.	Visualization, Customization, Reformatting, Subsetting, Comparison
RTC Stack Processor	The radiometric terrain correction (RTC) stack processor tool facilitates time-series analysis of such phenomena as flooding events, deforestation, or glacier retreat.	Analysis, Processing, Search and Discovery, Visualization
SeaDAS	Sea, earth, atmosphere Data Analysis System (SeaDAS) is a comprehensive image analysis package for the processing, display, analysis, and quality control of ocean color data.	Analysis, Visualization, Processing
STREAM	STREAM is a rapid water quality monitoring tool that processes satellite imagery to create maps showing chlorophyll-a, Total Suspended Solids, and water clarity at 20-30 meter resolution.	Processing
SWOT Swath Visualizer	The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Swath Visualizer provides a visualization of two instruments’ coverage of Earth's surface: the Ka-band Radar Interferometer and altimeter.	Analysis, Data Curation, Visualization

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Terrestrial Hydrosphere Data Access and Tools

Commonly Used Datasets for Terrestrial Hydrosphere Applications

Terrestrial Hydrosphere Datasets

Terrestrial Hydrosphere Data Tools

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