Project Description

DMSP SSM/I Sea Ice Concentration Grids

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Summary

SSM/I orbital antenna temperatures are processed to gridded brightness temperatures, that are then used to derive daily first year, multiyear and total ice concentrations. Two sets of grids are generated, one according to the NASA Team algorithm and the other according to the J.C. Comiso algorithm. Both incorporate weather filters in order to minimize the possibility of spurious sea ice concentrations resulting from the presence of atmospheric water vapor, non-precipitating cloud liquid water, rain, and sea surface roughening by surface winds. Data, gridded to the polar stereographic projection at a resolution of 25 X 25 km, is available on CD-ROM.

Table of Contents

1. Project Overview
2. Data Availability
3. Access
4. Principal Investigator
5. Submitting Investigator
6. References
7. Detailed Description

1.Project Overview

Name of Project

SSM/I Sea Ice Concentration Grids for Polar Regions on CD-ROM

Purpose

Sea Ice Concentrations are derived in order to map ice extent, actual ice and open water areas, monitor polynyas and to calculate heat and salinity fluxes between ocean and atmosphere in the polar regions.

Geographic Regions

Gridded data is available for both North and South polar regions according to the following maps, and except for small circular sectors of 311 km radius at each pole, which are never measured due to the orbit inclination.

Brief Description

DMSP F8 SSM/I Ice Concentration Grids for the Polar Regions consist of daily first year, multiyear, and total ice concentrations on 25 X 25 km polar stereographic grids for North and South polar regions. SSM/I sea ice CD-ROMs contain two sets of grids, one generated using the NASA Team algorithm and the other generated using the J.C. Comiso algorithm.

2. Data Availability

Two CD-ROMs contain the sea ice data, covering the period from 9 July 1987 to 31 December 1991.

3. Access

NSIDC User Services
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0449  USA
phone: +1 303.492.6199
fax: +1 303.492.2468
form: Contact NSIDC User Services
e-mail: nsidc@nsidc.org

4. Principal Investigator

Roger Barry

Please direct all queries to NSIDC User Services.

5. Submitting Investigator

Vince Troisi

Please direct all queries to NSIDC User Services.

6. References

Please review the bibliography.

7. Detailed Description

Please see the SSM/I Sea Ice Concentration Grids data set documentation.

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Document Type: Project Document
Revision Date: December 1995