PhoREAL: Increasing Spatial and Temporal Data Accessibility of ICESat-2 through Open-Source Python Repository

ICESat-2 is a space-based laser altimetry mission that provides accurate 3D representations of the earth's surface. The Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) onboard ICESat-2 can measure surface heights with great accuracy, providing critical measurements needed to better understand key surface structure variables. The Photon Research and Analysis Library (PhoREAL) was designed to provide a customizable analysis tool for NASA's ICESat-2 Land and Vegetation (ATL08) data. With PhoREAL, users can resample, reproject, and recalculate terrain and canopy height statistics at any along-track resolution. PhoREAL is designed both as a command line tool and a Windows-based GUI and provides functionality such as reading ATL08/ATL03 data files and exporting the geolocated photon data to multiple output file formats; combining ATL08/ATL03 data products to label the individual photons as noise, ground, canopy, and top of canopy photons; comparing and aligning the measured ICESat-2 data relative to reference data; computing ICESat-2 height and radiometric statistics for ground and canopy photons at specified bin lengths; and plotting the ICESat-2, reference, and statistical data together. PhoREAL is available as free and open-source software on GitHub (https://github.com/icesat-2UT/PhoREAL). It can run as a Windows executable or in a Python environment for compatibility in both Windows and Linux environments. PhoREAL is a valuable tool for scientists who want to analyze ICESat-2 data. It provides a user-friendly interface for accessing and processing the data, and it offers a variety of features that can be used to extract valuable information from the data.