icepyx: transitioning ICESat-2 data access and subsetting to the cloud

Abstract In 2018, NASA launched a satellite called ICESat-2 to measure the height of Earth’s surfaces (everything from buildings to trees to lakes to ice). The number of measurements is large - your computer might only be able to hold one or two day’s worth - and complex. A community of scientists and software developers built a tool called icepyx to make it easier for everyone to (1) get only the measurements they need from ICESat-2; (2) work with those measurements. In 2023, icepyx provided 40% of all the ICESat-2 measurements that were downloaded, suggesting it is a helpful community tool. As NASA changes where satellite measurements are stored, people downloading ICESat-2 measurements will need to get them from this new place, and how they get them is a little different. By working with the NASA group responsible for moving the measurements to the new storage location, icepyx will make it so that most people will never even need to know they moved. This shows how scientists and software developers can work together to make it easy to get ICESat-2 measurements. We will share how we can expand the tools offered by icepyx for other satellite measurements, too. Plain Language Abstract In 2018, NASA launched a satellite called ICESat-2 to measure the height of Earth’s surfaces (everything from buildings to trees to lakes to ice). The number of measurements is large - your computer might only be able to hold one or two day’s worth - and complex. A community of scientists and software developers built a tool called icepyx to make it easier for everyone to (1) get only the measurements they need from ICESat-2; (2) work with those measurements. In 2023, icepyx provided 40% of all the ICESat-2 measurements that were downloaded, suggesting it is a helpful community tool. As NASA changes where satellite measurements are stored, people downloading ICESat-2 measurements will need to get them from this new place, and how they get them is a little different. By working with the NASA group responsible for moving the measurements to the new storage location, icepyx will make it so that most people will never even need to know they moved. This shows how scientists and software developers can work together to make it easy to get ICESat-2 measurements. We will share how we can expand the tools offered by icepyx for other satellite measurements, too. More Information Poster presentation in American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2024 Annual Meeting session IN41C: Transformative Earth Science Data: The Tools/Services and Innovations Driving Timely and Impactful Research, Analysis, and Decision-Making