|
Overview
Glaciers
Ice Shelves and Icebergs
Staff Expeditions
Home Page Photo Gallery
2007 Images
|
Sea Ice
Sea Ice Index Images
The Sea Ice Index consists of graphics showing trends and anomalies in monthly mean Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration and extent, with a table of monthly mean extent in millions of square km. The NSIDC Near-Real-Time DMSP SSM/I Daily Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations and the DMSP SSM/I Daily and Monthly Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations data sets are used to generate the monthly mean, trend, and anomaly images so that users of the product can monitor monthly mean ice conditions as they evolve. Trends and anomalies are based on the period of record beginning in 1988. The product is intended to help researchers illustrate sea ice conditions, and to inform users with general questions about recent ice concentration and extent.
Sea Ice Concentration Images
Passive microwave observations of polar oceans are useful for tracking ice edges and for estimating sea ice concentrations. NSIDC distributes several sea ice products. Sea ice concentrations are derived from gridded brightness temperatures obtained from orbital data generated by the Defense Meteorological (DMSP) F8, F11 and F13 Special Sensor Microwave/Imagers (SSM/I).
(~31k .GIF)
|
(~26 .GIF)
|
Daily and monthly averaged sea ice concentration grids displayed in the polar stereographic projection.
February and April 1989. |
NSIDC has created QuickTime movies of Arctic and Antarctic monthly mean sea ice concentrations, offering monthly snapshots of sea ice concentration change. Using GIF images provided by Goddard Space Flight Center, NSIDC created sea ice concentrations for each year from 1978 through 1996. Each animation file is approximately 8.31 megabytes. NSIDC has also created MPEG images showing change in sea ice concentrations from 1978 through 1996 for both the Arctic (~4.0 Mb) and the Antarctic (~4.5 Mb). For more information about the creation of the QuickTime movies and MPEG images see the Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I Passive Microwave Data Help Page.
|
