QGreenland, an open-source mapping tool that aids in the discovery and teaching about Greenland, is now available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and its partners. This free geographic information systems (GIS) tool allows for the exploration of data on Greenland’s ocean, land, ice sheet, biology, communities and more, and can be used by a diverse range of users to examine the data available about Greenland’s landscape, ecosystem and communities. QGreenland is the first GIS data-viewing tool of its kind to focus on Greenland.
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NSIDC manages and distributes scientific data, creates tools for data access, supports data users, performs scientific research, and educates the public about the cryosphere.

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis
Scientific analysis of Arctic sea ice conditions plus daily images.jpg)
ELOKA
Working together to understand the changing Arctic system
Snow Today
Scientific analysis of snow conditions in the Western United States plus daily images
The NASA DAAC at NSIDC
NASA Earth science data on snow, ice, cryosphere, and climate
Visit the Cryosphere
Facts, photos and educational resources about Earth's frozen regions
Greenland Today
Daily surface melt images from NASA data, and scientific analysisNews
As climate change warms the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, new challenges abound for the communities that live in the region, including food sovereignty, coastal erosion, increasing shipping traffic and more. The National Science Foundation’s Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) initiative aims to improve our understanding of the rapid, dramatic changes taking place in the region in order to better mitigate these challenges. Beginning February 1, 2021, Alaska Pacific University (APU), the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) will host the Navigating the New Arctic Community Office (NNA-CO). Over the next five years, these universities will work together to provide leadership and support to researchers and Arctic communities to address this region’s biggest climate-related threats.
Red and green algae that grow on snow in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) cause significant extra snowmelt on par with melt from dust on snow in the Rocky Mountains, according to a first-of-its-kind scientific research study led by Alia Khan, affiliate research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and assistant professor at Western Washington University. Algal blooms are likely to increase in Antarctica as the planet continues to warm, which will further exacerbate seasonal snowmelt and contribute to the expansion of ice-free areas in the AP region. This could have serious impacts on regional climate, snow and ice melt, freshwater availability and ecosystems, yet is not accounted for in current global climate models. Results of the research were published on January 13, 2021, in the European Geosciences Union’s The Cryosphere.
In September 2018, NASA launched the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) to help scientists investigate why and how much the frozen parts of our world are changing as a result of global warming. This week, nearly two years after data initially became available to the public, downloads of data files from the satellite hit 10 million. All ICESat-2 data are housed and managed at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC).
Ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has accelerated significantly over the past two decades, transforming the shape of the ice sheet edge and therefore coastal Greenland, according to scientific research led by Twila Moon, deputy lead scientist of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. These changes to the ice sheet could have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems and communities, as the flow of water under the ice sheet as well as nutrient and sediment flow are altered. Results of the research were published on October 27 in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.
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The Latest on Snow and Ice
Sea ice processing is currently having problems. Daily Sea Ice Index/Arctic Sea Ice News and... read more
The melt mapping tool for Antarctica Today has been improved after a revision was made to the... read more
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2021 tracked below average, with the monthly average finishing... read more