This page lists the most popular sea ice products available from NSIDC. We suggest you start here to choose the best product for your research, based on strengths and weaknesses listed below. Follow the links in each description for further highlights of each product and access to data.
NSIDC archives sea ice concentration products developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and at NSIDC. See Frequently Asked Questions for a more detailed comparison of the strengths and limitations of these products.
NSIDC
GSFC
Source
DMSP SSM/I
Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I
Strengths
Updated every three to six months
Longest continuous data record (1979 through 2004); highest quality
control
Weaknesses
Shorter time series (1987 to near-present); less quality control than GSFC products
Title:Near Real-Time DMSP SSM/I Daily Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations Source: DMSP SSM/I Strenths: Timely; operational-level product available within 24 to 48 hours Weaknesses: No quality control; errors or missing data may exist; derived from NASA Team algorithm only
Title:Nimbus-5 ESMR Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations Source: Nimbus-5 ESMR Strenths: Oldest passive microwave record of sea ice Weaknesses: Single-channel instrument; lower quality estimates; many data gaps
Title:Sea Ice Index Source: DMSP SSM/I Strengths: Helps researchers illustrate sea ice conditions; extended
time series (November 1978 through present).
The Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid (EASE-Grid) is based on a philosophy of digital mapping and gridding definitions developed at NSIDC. It is intended to be a versatile tool for users of global-scale gridded data, specifically remote sensing data, although it is gaining popularity as a common gridding scheme for data from other sources as well. The EASE-Grid consists of a set of three equal-area projections combined with an infinite number of possible grid definitions. It allows diverse data sets to be compared on the same grid.
Typically available within 1-2 days following the time of SSM/I image acquisition
Derived from brightness temperatures that have not received the same types of quality control that are applied to the standard sea ice data set
Developed to assist in generation of EOS satellite products that require knowledge of snow and ice coverage
Data are useful for near real-time investigations of changes in sea ice concentration in conjunction with variations in snow cover.
Masks are applied to minimize erroneous retrievals of sea ice over open ocean and along coastlines.
Users wanting to detail trends in sea ice concentration and extent should exercise caution with these data, and are encouraged to use the other standard sea ice products when near-real time coverage is not an issue.
Snow cover extent is based on the digital NOAA-NESDIS Weekly Northern Hemisphere Snow Charts, revised by D. Robinson (Rutgers University) and regridded to the EASE-Grid.
Original NOAA-NESDIS weekly snow charts are derived from the manual interpretation of AVHRR, GOES, and other visible-band satellite data.
Sea ice extent is based on the NSIDC polar stereographic sea ice concentration grids derived from SMMR and SSM/I passive microwave brightness temperature data.
This data set was designed to represent large-scale seasonal fluctuations in snow cover and sea ice extent, and is most appropriate for large area studies.
Passive Microwave
