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ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model NetCDF V003

Metadata Updated: June 4, 2024

The ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) Version 3 (ASTGTM) provides a global digital elevation model (DEM) of land areas on Earth at a spatial resolution of 1 arc second (approximately 30 meter horizontal posting at the equator).

The development of the ASTER GDEM data products is a collaborative effort between National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). The ASTER GDEM data products are created by the Sensor Information Laboratory Corporation (SILC) in Tokyo.

The ASTER GDEM Version 3 data product was created from the automated processing of the entire ASTER Level 1A (https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/AST_L1A.003) archive of scenes acquired between March 1, 2000, and November 30, 2013. Stereo correlation was used to produce over one million individual scene based ASTER DEMs, to which cloud masking was applied. All cloud screened DEMs and non-cloud screened DEMs were stacked. Residual bad values and outliers were removed. In areas with limited data stacking, several existing reference DEMs were used to supplement ASTER data to correct for residual anomalies. Selected data were averaged to create final pixel values before partitioning the data into 1 degree latitude by 1 degree longitude tiles with a one pixel overlap. To correct elevation values of water body surfaces, the ASTER Global Water Bodies Database (ASTWBD) (https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ASTWBD.001) Version 1 data product was also generated.

The geographic coverage of the ASTER GDEM extends from 83° North to 83° South. Each tile is distributed in NetCDF format and projected on the 1984 World Geodetic System (WGS84)/1996 Earth Gravitational Model (EGM96) geoid. Each of the 22,912 tiles in the collection contain at least 0.01% land area.

Each ASTGTM_NC data product contains a DEM file, which provides elevation information. The corresponding ASTGTM_NUMNC file indicates the number of scenes that were processed for each pixel and the source of the data.

While the ASTER GDEM Version 3 data products offer substantial improvements over Version 2, users are advised that the products still may contain anomalies and artifacts that will reduce its usability for certain applications.

Improvements/Changes from Previous Versions • Expansion of acquisition coverage to increase the amount of cloud-free input scenes from about 1.5 million in Version 2 to about 1.88 million scenes in Version 3. • Separation of rivers from lakes in the water body processing. • Minimum water body detection size decreased from 1 km2 to 0.2 km2.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 27, 2023
Metadata Updated Date June 4, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Graphic Preview

Browse image for Earthdata Search.

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 27, 2023
Metadata Updated Date June 4, 2024
Publisher LP DAAC
Maintainer
Identifier C2439422590-LPCLOUD
Data First Published 2019-08-05
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 2019-08-05
Category Terra, geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://data.nasa.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Citation NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team. 2019-08-05. ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model NetCDF V003 . Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, NASA EOSDIS Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM_NC.003. https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM_NC.003. The DOI landing page provides citations in APA and Chicago styles..
Creator NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
Graphic Preview Description Browse image for Earthdata Search.
Graphic Preview File https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov/browse-scaler/browse_images/granules/G2439718035-LPCLOUD?h=500&w=500
Harvest Object Id 3890e44d-5f09-410d-af0b-52edff42eac3
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM_NC.003
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -180.0 -83.0 180.0 82.0
Program Code 026:001
Release Place Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash c552835029eff3cac1d21630a80ecc7cee32bbaec55d01709485ed28e2c31a62
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2000-03-01T00:00:00Z/2013-11-30T23:59:59.999Z

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