Recurring Spring Leads and Landfast Ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, 1993-2004

Data Contributors

EICKEN, HAJO
SHAPIRO, LEWIS H
GRAVES GAYLORD, ALLISON

Parameters

ICE EDGES
ICE EXTENT
LEADS

Instruments

AVHRR : ADVANCED VERY HIGH RESOLUTION RADIOMETER
SAR : SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR

In the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, the most significant sea ice anomalies have occurred in the summer ice extent (Eicken et al. 2006). In addition, there has been a considerable decline in the multiyear ice pack in this region (Eicken et al. 2006). To help understand these anomalies, this data set contains information on recurring spring leads and landfast ice extent in this area. This data set maps and documents the spatial and temporal distribution of recurring leads and landfast ice off the coast of northern Alaska in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas (Eicken et al. 2006). The leads data span from 1993 through 2004 and are based on visible and infrared Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data onboard the NOAA 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 satellites. The landfast ice extent data extend from 1996 through 2004 and are based on RADARSAT-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. The data are available in a number of formats including ArcGIS geodatabases (.mdb), shapefiles (.shp), ArcGIS grids (.adf), ArcGIS grids in ArcInfo interchange format (.e00), and GeoTIFFs (.tif). Statistics are also provided in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets (.xls) and metadata in several formats including XML (.xml), SGML (.sgml), HTML (.html), and ASCII text (.txt). Quick-view browse images in JPEG (.jpg) format are provided for the shapefiles, grids, and GeoTIFFs. Data are available via FTP.

Data Citation

The following example shows how to cite the use of these data sets in a publication. List the principal investigators, year of data set release, data set title and version number, dates of the data you used (for example, March to June 2004), publisher: NSIDC, and digital media.

Eicken, H., L. Shapiro, A. G. Gaylord, A. Mahoney and P. W. Cotter. 2008. Recurring spring leads and landfast ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, 1993-2004. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.