See also: All About EASE-Grid

NOAA/NASA Pathfinder Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid (EASE-Grid)
Brightness Temperatures Image Gallery

The images in the sampler below are representative of the NOAA/NASA Pathfinder Program Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) Level 3 Brightness Temperatures. The data produced at NSIDC are in EASE-Grid (Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid) format. For documentation accompanying this data set, please reference the EASE-Grid User's Guide.

Vernal equinox 1988 browse images

The data images below are derived from the DMSP F-8 satellite, 20 March 1988. Grids are 25 km resolution.

In the following examples, "ascending" and "descending" refer to satellite orbital direction. Data are available as daily single image files, such as those shown below, where each image is either ascending or descending for a given channel. The values 19, 22, 37, and 85 refer to channel frequency in Gigahertz (GHz): "H" and "V" stand for horizontal and vertical polarization. By combining ascending and descending orbits for a given day, full global coverage is achieved at latitudes greater than 43 degrees and up to four additional days are required to achieve complete coverage at the equator.

Also review the accompanying description of time files.

The images above have been supplied by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Distributed Active Archive (DAAC). Please browse the following links to learn more about our services and data collections.

• National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive
• NSIDC DAAC Data Sets.