On Wednesday, April 24, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (US Mountain Time), the following data collections may not be available due to planned system maintenance: ASO, AMSR Unified, AMSR-E, Aquarius, High Mountain Asia, IceBridge, ICESat/GLAS, ICESat-2, LVIS, MEaSUREs, MODIS, Nimbus, SMAP, SnowEx, SSM/I-SSMIS and VIIRS.
VIIRS Version 1 (Collection 1) snow and sea ice data sets will cease forward processing on June 17, 2024. The Version 1 data will remain available for download, but users are encouraged to transition to VIIRS Version 2. VIIRS Version 2 includes new snow, sea ice, and ice surface temperature data sets from both the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-20 (NOAA-20) satellite.
This data set reports the location of sea ice cover derived from radiance data acquired by the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). Following the approach used by MODIS, Sea Ice is detected using the Normalized Difference Snow Index. The VIIRS instrument flies onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite.
Parameter(s):
SEA ICE
Platform(s):
SUOMI-NPP
Sensor(s):
VIIRS
Data Format(s):
NetCDF
Temporal Coverage:
19 January 2012 to present
Temporal Resolution:
6 minute
Spatial Resolution:
375 m
375 m
Spatial Coverage:
N:
90
S:
-90
E:
180
W:
-180
Blue outlined yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.
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Data products from VIIRS are created to be similar to MODIS data products to ensure the continuity needed for the development of snow and sea ice climate records beyond the life expectancy of MODIS. The temporal resolution and spatial extent are identical in MODIS and VIIRS.
The lag time between observations and availability of VIIRS products is only a few days. Lag time may be extended due to satellite maneuvers and extra quality assurance required for the geolocation data after the maneuver.
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