NOAA@NSIDC

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce that the NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record of Passive Microwave Sea Ice Concentration, Version 4 data set, accessible through the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), has been updated to include the time period of 01 June 2022 through 31 December 2022. This data set provides a consistent daily and monthly time series of sea ice concentrations from 25 October 1978 through 31 December 2022 for both the north and south polar regions on a 25 km x 25 km grid.

It has come to our attention that for charts from the beginning of the series in January 2003 through January 2006, the U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Charts in SIGRID-3 Format, Version 1 data set included an additional variable used to identify fast ice. Prior to February 2006 the U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC) used the form variable “CF”, filled with 0899, to identify some polygons as fast ice.

It has come to our attention that the fast ice extent area is underestimated in the files between January 2003 and January 2006 from the U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Concentration and Climatologies in Gridded Format data set. This is due to processing at NSIDC failing to take into account USNIC’s use of the form variable “CF” to identify fast ice during this period.

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce that 38 photos have been added to the Glacier Photograph Collection, Version 1. The photos range in dates from 1963 to 2022. Ten of the photos are part of a new collection called the Koni Steffen Special Collection that include photos of a glacier in Greenland that was posthumously named for Konrad Steffen, renowned Swiss glaciologist and climate scientist. The photos were taken during the Leister Expedition Go North 2022 to northern Greenland.

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce that the NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record of Passive Microwave Sea Ice Concentration, Version 4 data set, accessible through the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), has been updated to include the time period of 01 January 2022 through 31 May 2022. This data set provides a consistent daily and monthly time series of sea ice concentrations from 25 October 1978 through 31 May 2022 for both the north and south polar regions on a 25 km x 25 km grid.

The 01 January through 31 May 2022 data for the Near-Real-Time NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record of Passive Microwave Sea Ice Concentration, Version 2 data set, accessible through the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) have been removed. This data set provides a near-real-time (NRT) Climate Data Record (CDR) of sea ice concentration from passive microwave data.

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce the release of the U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Charts in SIGRID-3 Format, Version 1 data set. This data set contains Arctic and Antarctic-wide sea ice charts that have information on sea ice concentration, stage of development (often called ice type), and form. The charts are produced by the U.S. National Ice Center, with a temporal coverage of 2003 to present, and for most of the record the charts are weekly in frequency.

NOAA@NSIDC would like to make users aware that the ice-off dates for certain years between 2006-2019 for 20 Maine Lakes in this database have been corrected. The source of these dates for 2007-2008 onwards for 19 of these lakes are the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (DACF).

NOAA@NSIDC would like to make users aware of a change to the processing frequency for the U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Concentration and Climatologies in Gridded Format data set. The USNIC has changed to creating their Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Charts from weekly to every other week. The Arctic and Antarctic charts will be processed on alternating weeks. For example, the Arctic charts were processed for the week of 18 April 2022, and the Antarctic will be processed the following week, and so on alternating each week.

On 18 April 2022, the IMS Daily Northern Hemisphere Snow and Ice Analysis files were renamed. Two updates were made to the file names:

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce that the Glacier Covered Area for the State of Alaska, 1985-2020, Version 1 data set is now available at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). This data set captures changes in glacier covered area across the state of Alaska for the period of 1985-2020. The data set includes 18 biannual shapefiles each for overall glacier covered area, supraglacial debris area, and debris-free glacier covered area.

On 18 April 2022, the IMS Daily Northern Hemisphere Snow and Ice Analysis (G02156) data set will have new file names. There are two updates being made to the file names:

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce that the Climate Data Record of Passive Microwave Sea Ice Concentration, Version 4 data set, accessible through the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), has been updated to include the time period of 01 June 2021 through 31 December 2021. This data set provides a consistent daily and monthly time series of sea ice concentrations from 25 October 1978 through 31 December 2021 for both the north and south polar regions on a 25 km x 25 km grid.

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce that the International Ice Patrol (IIP) has updated their Iceberg Sightings Database through the 2021 iceberg season. The IIP has been collecting information on iceberg activity in the North Atlantic since 1913, and this database contains data from these sightings starting in 1960. The IIP data files include latitude and longitude of sighted icebergs, coded iceberg size and shape class, and date and time of the sighting.

The Daily Great Lakes Ice Concentration, 1973 Onward, Version 1 data set has been updated. There were some missing daily ASCII files for the years 2007 to 2009 and 2011 to 2016. These missing files for additional days have been added to the archive and are now available. This data set consists of daily gridded lake ice concentration for the Laurentian Great Lakes from the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).

Data set DOI: https://doi.org/10.7265/krkb-f591

NOAA@NSIDC would like to make you aware of a change to the data used to produce the U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Concentration and Climatologies in Gridded Format, Version 1 data set.

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce that the Climate Data Record of Passive Microwave Sea Ice Concentration, Version 4 data set has been updated to include the time period of 01 January 2021 through 31 May 2021.

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce the release of the Rutgers Northern Hemisphere 24 km Weekly Snow Cover Extent, September 1980 Onward data set. This data set provides weekly snow cover extent at a 24 km resolution for the Northern Hemisphere from September 1980 in NetCDF format. The time series currently goes to September 2021 but will be updated on an annual basis every September.

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce that the 2021 ice season data is now available from the Daily Great Lakes Ice Concentration, 1973 Onward data set. The new data span 22 November 2020 through 29 April 2021. This data set consists of daily gridded lake ice concentration for the Laurentian Great Lakes from the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL). The data are provided as gridded ASCII text files along with corresponding browse image files in .jpg format.

NSIDC is pleased to announce the release of the Arctic Sea State 2015 Field Campaign, Version 1 data set. The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Sea State Departmental Research Initiative (DRI) field campaign was conducted in October and November of 2015 in the Beaufort Sea in order to better understand how waves and ice interact as Arctic ice advances in late autumn. As sea ice has retreated under the influence of warming climate, fetch (distance of open water over which wind can act to build waves) has grown, resulting in an increasingly dynamic sea state.