Bootstrap Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I

Data Contributors

COMISO, JOSEPHINO 'JOEY' C.

Parameters

SEA ICE CONCENTRATION

Instruments

SMMR : SCANNING MULTICHANNEL MICROWAVE RADIOMETER
SSM/I : SPECIAL SENSOR MICROWAVE/IMAGER

Notice to Data Users: Processing of this data set is temporarily suspended due to the loss of the DMSP F-13 satellite. NSIDC is working with our data source, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), to acquire data for this product from the DMSP F-17 satellite. We hope to have the data processed and available by late Spring 2010.

This sea ice concentration data set was derived using measurements from the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) on the Nimbus-7 satellite and from three Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) sensors on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's (DMSP) -F8, -F11, and -F13 satellites. The data set has been generated using the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) Bootstrap Algorithm with daily varying tie-points. Daily (every other day prior to July 1987) and monthly data are available for both the north and south polar regions. Data are gridded on the SSM/I polar stereographic grid (25 x 25 km) and provided in two-byte integer format. Data are available via FTP.

Important Note: The most recent revision (Version 2, released September 2007) has tie-points adjusted to be consistent with the AMSR-E Bootstrap algorithm. This involved a complete reprocessing of the entire SMMR-SSM/I time series. Because Version 2 is inter-calibrated with AMSR-E, it is NOT consistent or compatible with the original version of this data set (Version 1). Users should acquire the entire Version 2 data set in order to update their time series.

Data Citation

Bootstrap Sea Ice Concentrations from NIMBUS-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I