NSIDC DAAC will archive and distribute data products from the NASA Land, Vegetation and Ice Sensor (LVIS) Facility, an imaging LIDAR system for precise and accurate, large-area surface mapping and characterization. Primary products are surface elevation, height, and structure metrics and true 3-dimensional characterization of terrain overflown during airborne campaigns throughout the world. Data from the system are used in numerous applications, for example, those requiring ocean, land, sea ice, and ice surface topography, vegetation height and structure measurements, and man-made surface feature heights. Observations can be combined with other observations and model results to address questions about the Earth’s carbon and water cycles and biodiversity. The LVIS-Facility was developed by NASA/GSFC with support from NASA HQ to facilitate access to large-area LIDAR coverage.