Monthly Climatology of Sea Ice Concentration
Monthly sea ice concentration climatology data represent mean ice concentration percentages for each month over the entire time period of January 1979 through current processing. The data are derived from the NASA Team Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Passive Microwave Data. A threshold of 15 percent concentration is applied to the monthly climatology fields.
Data Access
Data are available via FTP.
Data Format
Data are in flat binary one-byte integer format. Thus, 97 means 97 percent sea ice concentration. For the Northern Hemisphere, the grid size is 304 x 448 pixels; and for the Southern Hemisphere, the grid size is 316 x 332 pixels. Corresponding PNG images of monthly climatologies are also provided in the browse directory on the FTP site.
File Naming Convention
The data files are named according to the following convention:
mean.mmm.yyyy1-yyyy2.h
where:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| mean | Identifies this as a mean ice concentration percentage data file |
| mmm | 3-character month |
| yyyy1 | 4-digit year of the first year for which data was available |
| yyyy2 | 4-digit year of the last year for which data was available |
| h | Hemisphere (n: Northern, s: Southern) |
