National Ice Center Arctic Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies in Gridded Format

Data Contributors

NATIONAL ICE CENTER, SUITLAND, MARYLAND USA
FETTERER, FLORENCE
FOWLER, CHARLES

Parameters

SEA ICE CONCENTRATION

Instruments

AVHRR : ADVANCED VERY HIGH RESOLUTION RADIOMETER
OLS : OPERATIONAL LINESCAN SYSTEM
SAR : SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR
SCATTEROMETERS
SMMR : SCANNING MULTICHANNEL MICROWAVE RADIOMETER
SSM/I : SPECIAL SENSOR MICROWAVE/IMAGER
VISUAL OBSERVATIONS

The U.S. National Ice Center (NIC) is an inter-agency sea ice analysis and forecasting center comprised of Department of Commerce/NOAA, Department of Defense/U.S. Navy, and Department of Homeland Security/U.S. Coast Guard components. Since 1972, NIC has produced Arctic and Antarctic sea ice charts. This data set is comprised of Arctic sea ice concentration climatology derived from the NIC weekly or biweekly operational ice-chart time series. The charts used in the climatology are from 1972 through 2007; and the monthly climatology products are median, maximum, minimum, first quartile, and third quartile concentrations, as well as frequency of occurrence of ice at any concentration for 33-year, 10-year, and 5-year periods. These climatologies and the charts from which they are derived are provided in the 25-km Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid (EASE-Grid) binary format. The climatologies are also made available in a Geographical Information System (GIS) compatible format, and GIF format browse files are also provided.

NIC charts are produced through the analyses of available in situ, remote sensing, and model data sources. They are generated primarily for mission planning and safety of navigation. NIC charts generally show more ice than do passive microwave derived sea ice concentrations, particularly in the summer when passive microwave algorithms tend to underestimate ice concentration. The record of sea ice concentration from the NIC series is believed to be more accurate than that from passive microwave sensors, especially from the mid-1990s on (see references in the documentation), but it lacks the consistency of some passive microwave time series.

Data Citation

National Ice Center Arctic sea ice charts and climatologies in gridded format.