Recent Release of the ASTER Global DEM Product

On June 29th, the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (DEM) release was announced to the public and to a very eager audience. ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) is an imaging instrument flying on Terra, a satellite launched in December 1999 as part of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS). ASTER is a cooperative effort between NASA, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Japan's Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center (ERSDAC). On June 21, NASA Headquarters along with colleagues in Japan (METI) signed a plan for distribution of this product. The global digital elevation model of Earth is available online to users everywhere at no cost from NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) located at Sioux Falls, SD. The DAAC is a joint project of NASA and the USGS and is a key component of NASA's EOSDIS. The new ASTER GDEM was created from nearly 1.3 million individual stereo-pair images acquired by the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite. The ASTER elevation model was jointly developed by NASA and METI under contract to Sensor Information Laboratory Corp., Tsukuba, Japan. On June 29, the NASA press release was picked up quickly by numerous news organizations and online sites. Response to the product was incredible! The news of the release of the product was carried on websites across the globe, this fueled a tremendous response from users. Here are a few interesting metrics about the release: - over 41,000 unique visitors to website in first week following release - top countries in order were: US (approx. 20%), Germany, U.K., Brazil, Austria, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, Japan - approximately 29,000 visitors came to the news page in the first week and about 11,000 of these users downloaded the actual press release - by the end of August, over 2 Million ASTER GDEM files had been downloaded from the Land Processes DAAC This presentation covers the issues associated with the release of this very popular product, including issues raised by many of our users.