13351e7a-89ea-4b4e-a331-df092be8bc4d eng Javed Hassan DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark javed@space.dtu.dk 2026-06-18T14:28:02 North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003 WGS 1984 High Mountain Asia Lake Water Level Dataset from CryoSat‑2 and ICESat‑2 2026-06-16 Javed Hassan DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark Karina Nielsen DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark William Colgan Department of Glaciology and Climate, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Rijan Bhakta Kayastha Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Himalayan Cryosphere, Climate and Disaster Research Center (HiCCDRC), School of Science, Kathmandu University Mira Khadka Climate Cubit Shfaqat Abbas Khan DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark High Mountain Asia (HMA) host one of the largest concentrations of lakes globally, which together with snow and ice reserves, serve as an essential water resource for the region. Due to the limited human disturbances these high-altitude lakes serve as sensitive indicators of climate change impacts. However, their vast number, remote location, and challenging mountainous terrain make in-situ measurements scarce. Satellite altimetry offers a unique opportunity to continuously monitor lake water level variation across HMA. Here we present a water level timeseries for 238 lakes (≥ 20 km2) across HMA derived from CryoSat-2 (2010-2023) and ICESat-2 (2018-2024). Water level timeseries from the two independent altimetry missions shows strong consistency with 80% of lakes exhibiting statistically significant agreement in their signals (p = 0.013). The dataset is structured as a single netCDF file with a two-dimensional matrix format, including water level measurements, associated uncertainties, mission identifiers, ice flags, and static lake attributions (location, area). The water level datasets presented enables long-term trend analysis, changes in lake water storage, response to wet-and-dry climate cycles. The dataset also provides essential variables to study relationships between lake ecosystems and changes in the water resources across HMA. To provide water level time series data for 238 lakes across High Mountain Asia (HMA) derived using satellite altimetry data from CryoSat‑2 (2010 – 2023) and ICESat‑2 (2018 – 2024) lake level change satellite altimetry climate change hydrology cryosphere High Mountain Asia Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) eng geoscientificInformation 66.7521 105.0141 25.6151 46.0049 2010-07-18T00:00:00 2024-12-31T00:00:00 ICIMOD metadata@icimod.org https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-808 WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link Rising Lake Levels Across High Mountain Asia Associated paper