Missing Pixels

The missing pixels data files contain daily information about the number of pixels (grid cells) that do not contain valid data due to sensor limitations. Missing pixel information allows users computing various statistics from data, such as ice extent, to quickly determine the viability of including data from a particular day in their calculations. For each daily brightness temperature field from the DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Daily Polar Gridded Brightness Temperatures data set, NSIDC sums the total number of missing pixels for the entire image to determine the percentage of missing pixels.

Data Access

Data are available via FTP.

Data Format

Data are in ASCII text format, with columns for date, number of missing pixels, and the percentage of missing pixels. GIF-formatted graphs of missing pixels are also provided.

File Naming Convention

The data files are named according to the following convention:

missing_pixels_Fxx.h

where:

File Naming Convention Description

Variable	Description
missing_pixels	Identifies this as a missing pixels data file
Fxx	2- and 3-character DMSP platform (F8, F11, F13, or F17)
h	Hemisphere (n: Northern, s: Southern)