IMS Daily Northern Hemisphere Snow and Ice Analysis at 4 km and 24 km Resolution

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Entry ID

G02156

Summary

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS) has an extensive history of monitoring snow and ice coverage. Accurate monitoring of global snow/ice cover is a key component in the study of climate and global change as well as daily weather forecasting. By inspecting environmental satellite imagery, analysts from the Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution (OSDPD), Satellite Services Division (SSD), Satellite Analysis Branch (SAB), have created a Northern Hemisphere snow/ice map since November 1966. Initially, the product was produced with a spatial resolution of about 16,000 square kilometers to 42,000 square kilometers and temporal resolution of seven days. In 1997, the Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) became operational, giving the satellite analysts improved access to imagery and drawing tools. Since February 1997, the IMS product has been produced daily at approximately 24 km resolution (1024 x 1024 grid). Further improvements in computer speed and imagery resolution allowed production of a higher resolution product at approximately 4 km resolution (6144 x 6144 grid), beginning in February 2004. NSIDC archives and distributes both IMS products, as well as GIF image files for these products. To view the images, please visit the NOAA SSD Snow Products Web site. In June 2006, NSIDC started distributing 4 km GeoTIFF files for use with GIS applications.

Data Set Citation

Dataset Creator: NOAA/NESDIS/OSDPD/SSD
Dataset Title: IMS Daily Northern Hemisphere Snow and Ice Analysis at 4 km and 24 km Resolution
Dataset Release Date: 2004-12-01
Dataset Release Place: Boulder, CO
Dataset Publisher: National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
Data Presentation Form: image
Online Resource: http://nsidc.org/data/g02156.html

Temporal Coverage

Start Date: 1997-02-01

Data Resolution

Temporal Resolution: Daily

Location Keywords

• Geographic Region Northern Hemisphere

Science Keywords

• Cryosphere Sea Ice Sea Ice Concentration
• Cryosphere Snow/Ice Ice Extent
• Cryosphere Snow/Ice Snow Cover
• Oceans Sea Ice Sea Ice Concentration
• Terrestrial Hydrosphere Snow/Ice Ice Extent
• Terrestrial Hydrosphere Snow/Ice Snow Cover

Ancillary Keywords

• IMS
• Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System
• NOAA
• NOAA SSD snow products
• Northern Hemisphere
• Numerical Weather Prediction

ISO Topic Category (View Definitions)

• Climatology/Meteorology/Atmosphere
• Oceans

Platform

• GEOSTATIONARY SATELLITES
• SATELLITES

Instrument

• AVHRR Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
• GOES I-M IMAGER
• SSM/I Special Sensor Microwave/Imager

Quality

The quality of the snow and ice cover charts will depend on the availability of clear sky imagery, the georegistration of that imagery, the quality of other input data sources, and the experience of the analyst. Regions covered by cloud during the 24-hour analysis period are generally mapped as persistence, taking lower resolution passive microwave data and surface observations into account where possible. Sub-grid scale features may not be detected.

Data Set Progress

IN WORK

Originating Center

NSIDC_NOAA

Data Center

National Snow and Ice Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org
Data Set ID: g02156

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC User Services
Phone: +1 (303) 492-6199
Fax: +1 (303) 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

NSIDC National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org/noaa/
Data Set ID: g02156

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC NOAA User Services
Phone: +1 (303) 492-6199
Fax: +1 (303) 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

Distribution

Distribution Media: FTP
Distribution Size: 36913 KB
Distribution Format: GeoTIFF

Distribution Media: ftp
Distribution Size: 20 KB - 60 KB
Distribution Format: ASCII
Fees: None

Personnel

Unknown
Role: INVESTIGATOR

NSIDC User Services
Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT
Phone: (303) 492-6199
Fax: (303) 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

Related URL

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
Sea Ice Products at NSIDC

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
Environmental Working Group Joint US-Russian Sea Ice Atlas

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
Northern Hemisphere EASE-Grid Weekly Snow Cover and Sea Ice Extent Version 2

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS) Data Products at SNOw Data Assimilation System (SNODAS)Data Products at NSIDC

Reference

Armstrong, R.L. and M.J. Brodzik. 2002. Northern Hemisphere EASE-Grid Weekly Snow Cover and Sea Ice Extent Version 2. Boulder, CO, USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. CD-ROM.

National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center. 2004. SNODAS Data Products at NSIDC. Boulder, CO: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.

Ramsey, B. H., 1995. An Overview of NOAA/NESDIS’s Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System. Proceedings of 1995 First Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Workshop, Greenbelt, MD, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Conference Publication 3318: 23-27.

Ramsey, B. H., 1998. The Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System. Hydrological Processes. Vol. 12: 1537-1546.

Robinson, D.A. 2000. Weekly Northern Hemisphere snow maps: 1966-1999. 12th Conference on Applied Climatology, Asheville, NC, American Meteorological Society. 12-15.

Robinson, D.A. and A. Frei. 2000. Seasonal variability of northern hemisphere snow extent using visible satellite data. Professional Geographer 51: 307-314.

Robinson, D.A., J.D. Tarpley and B. Ramsay. 1999. Transition from NOAA weekly to daily hemispheric snow charts. Proceedings of the 10th Symposium on Global Change, Dallas, TX, American Meteorological Society. 487-490.

Metadata Name and Version

Metadata Name: CEOS IDN DIF
Metadata Version: 9.7

Creation and Review Dates

DIF Creation Date: 2004-10-29

DIF Text-Only

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) in plain text

DIF XML

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) in Extensible Markup Language (XML)

FGDC HTML

U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM)