Antarctic Ice Shelf Image Archive

Changes in the extent and stability of Antarctic ice shelves prompted NSIDC to begin a monitoring program of the major ice streams and outlet glaciers along the Antarctic coast. This archive spans back to the late 1980's. We began by using data from the AVHRR Polar 1km data set and in 2001 switched to MODIS level 1B data. Most of the Antarctic coastline is being monitored year round. This archive is a selected subset of scenes, generally the clearest and most informative scenes available.

Citing these data

These data are offered free of charge. You may use these data freely, provided that you cite NSIDC as the source, and provide an acknowledgment in any published papers.

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

Scambos, T., J. Bohlander, and B. Raup. 1996. Images of Antarctic ice shelves. [dates of data used] Boulder, Colorado, USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media. http://nsidc.org/data/iceshelves_images/

For more information on this data set contact NSIDC User Services.

Beginning July 2009 the Ice Shelf Image Archive has been redesigned. The MODIS imagery is now searchable by date. Choose either AVHRR or MODIS to search each image archive.

Note: The AVHRR site still contains MODIS data prior to the redesign. However it does not include any images after June 2009.

AVHRR Archive/MODIS Jan. 2002 - June 2009

MODIS image Archive January 2002 - Present