Management at NSIDC: Florence Fetterer

Program Manager

Program Manager

MS, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, 1985
B.S., St. John's College, Annapolis, MD 1981

Specialties [top]

Sea ice; applications-oriented remote sensing; data rescue; data set development

Recent Highlights top]

July 2009: High-resolution, previously classified, imagery of environmentally sensitive sites is now available from the USGS Global Fiducials Library. Sea ice images are among the first of the 1-meter resolution visible band images to be publicly released. Florence has been involved with this project since the 1990s and continues working with USGS partners under an Intergovernmental Personnel Assignment.
March 2009: The Sea Ice Index was redesigned with a new look that makes it easier than ever to monitor changes in Arctic and Antarctic ice conditions on a daily basis and to monitor trends over time.
August 2008: Arctic Sea Ice Melt Pond Statistics and Maps, 1999, 2000, and 2001 were released. The data set includes pond coverage and size statistics from 1-meter visible band imagery. The satellite imagery was acquired over four Arctic Ocean sites.

See News from NOAA at NSIDC for all the NOAA team news.

Current Roles [top]

Florence manages NSIDC's NOAA-sponsored program and serves as the NSIDC liaison to NOAA. The NOAA@NSIDC program includes some of NSIDC's most popular data sets, such as the Glacier Photograph Database and the Sea Ice Index. The NOAA team specializes in documenting and publishing data sets that might otherwise remain unavailable to researchers. Examples include Russian and U.S. sea ice chart data, submarine upward looking sonar ice draft data, and historical Soviet snow data

Current Projects [top]

Co-I, Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (CADIS)

Florence is the NSIDC lead for this joint NCAR, UCAR, and NSIDC project to provide data management for the NSF-funded Arctic Observing Network (AON). See the presentation Florence gave during the 2008 American Meteorological Society (AMS) meeting about CADIS and AON: The Arctic Observing Network and its Data Management Challenges (.pdf 893 KB)

Co-I, Creation And Preservation Of A Sea Ice Climate Data Record

This project, funded by the NOAA Scientific Data Stewardship Program, will help us add higher resolution AMSR data to the existing SMMR and SSM/I passive microwave instrument based sea ice concentration record, and will improve the metadata attached to the record. NSIDC bases most of our sea ice tracking on the passive microwave sea ice concentration record.

Activities [top]

Working Group on Sea Ice In Alaska Coastal Seas (since 2006)
Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) Data Working Group (2006–2007)
Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) SST and Sea Ice Working Group (since 2005)
Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Data Management Advisory Committee (DMAC) Archive Expert Team (since 2005)
International Ice Charting Working Group Standing Committee on Data, Information, and Customer Support, Co-Chair (2003–2007)
NOAA/NESDIS NPOESS Data Exploitation Team Archive and Access Group (2003-2005)
Joint US-Canadian Ice Center Working Group's Standing Committee on Research, Remote Sensing and Modeling (1996–2002)
American Geophysical Union since approximately 1990
IEEE Affiliate (Geoscience and Remote Sensing section) since 1989

Selected Publications [top]

Fetterer, F., ed. 2008. The Poles. In State of the Climate in 2007. Levinson, D.H. and J. H. Lawrimore, ed., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 89: S85-S105.

Mahoney, A. R., R. G. Barry, V. Smolyanitsky, and F. Fetterer. 2008. Observed sea ice extent in the Russian Arctic, 1933�2006. Journal of Geophysical Research 113, C11005, doi:10.1029/2008JC004830.

Fetterer, F., ed. 2007. The Poles. In State of the Climate in 2006. Arguez, A., ed., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 88: S30-S45.

Meier, W.N., J. Stroeve, and F. Fetterer. 2007. Whither Arctic sea ice? A clear signal of decline regionally, seasonally and extending beyond the satellite record. Ann. Glaciol. 46: 428-434.

Stern, H., W. Meier, F. Fetterer. 2006. Arctic sea ice concentration from operational ice charts and satellite passive microwave data. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

Fetterer, F., compiler. 2006. A Selection of Documentation Related To National Ice Center Sea Ice Charts in Digital Format. NSIDC Special Report 13. Boulder, CO, USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. http://nsidc.org/pubs/special/nsidc_special_report_13.pdf

Casey, K. L.N. Connor, J. Lillibridge, L. Miller, R. Stumpf, and F. Fetterer. 2006. Satellite Contributions to the Ocean Observing System for Climate. NOAA Office of Climate Observations Annual Report.

Fetterer, F., and I. Smolyar. 2005. On the creation of environmental data sets for the Arctic region. Arctic Research of the United States 19(NSF05-39): 1-15.

Stroeve, J. C., M. C. Serreze, F. Fetterer, T. Arbetter, W. Meier, J. Maslanik, and K. Knowles. 2005. Tracking the Arctic's shrinking ice cover: Another extreme September minimum in 2004. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, doi:10.1029/2004GL021810.

Meier, W., J. Stroeve, F. Fetterer, K. Knowles. 2005. Reductions in Arctic sea ice cover no longer limited to summer. Eos Trans. AGU 86(36): 326, doi: 10.1029/2005EO360003.

Fetterer, F., and K. Knowles. 2004. Sea ice index monitors polar ice extent. Eos Trans. AGU (16): 163.

Serreze, M.C., J. Maslanik, T.A. Scambos, F. Fetterer, J. Stroeve, K. Knowles, C. Fowler, S. Drobot, R. Barry, and T.M. Haran. 2003. A record minimum Arctic sea ice extent and area in 2002. Geophysical Research Letters 30(3): 1110, doi:10.1029/2002GL016406.

Overland, J., J. Calder, F. Fetterer, D. McGuire, J. Morison, J. Richter-Menge, N. Soreide, and J. Walsh. 2003. SEARCH workshop on large-scale atmosphere-cryosphere observations. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (August): 1077-1082, DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-84-8-1077.

Data Sets

Fetterer, F., S. Wilds, and J. Sloan. 2008. Arctic sea ice melt pond statistics and maps, 1999-2001. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media. http://www.nsidc.org/data/g02159.html

Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. 2007. Sea ice charts of the Russian Arctic in gridded format, 1933-2006. Edited and compiled by V. Smolyanitsky, V. Borodachev, A. Mahoney, F. Fetterer, and R. Barry. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.

National Ice Center. 2006. National Ice Center Arctic sea ice charts and climatologies in gridded format. Edited and compiled by F. Fetterer and C. Fowler. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.

National Snow and Ice Data Center, compiler. 2006. Monthly mean precipitation sums at Russian Arctic stations, 1966 - 1990. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.

Radionov, VF., Ye. I. Aleksandrov, P.N. Svyashchennikov, and F. Fetterer. 2004. Daily precipitation sums at coastal and island Russian Arctic stations, 1940-1990. Boulder, CO: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.

Fetterer, F., K. Knowles, W. Meier, and M. Savoie. 2002, updated 2007. Sea Ice Index. Boulder, CO: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.

Arctic Climatology Project. 2000. Environmental Working Group Arctic meteorology and climate atlas, edited by F. Fetterer and V. Radionov, National Snow and Ice Data Center, CD-ROM, Boulder, CO, 2000.

National Snow and Ice Data Center. 2000. SHEBA reconnaissance imagery version 1.0. Boulder, Colorado: National Snow and Ice Data Center/ARCSS Data Coordination Center. http://nsidc.org/data/sheba_ntm/

Fetterer, F., and V. Troisi. 1997. AARI 10-Day Arctic Ocean EASE-Grid sea ice observations. Boulder, CO, USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.