• On Wednesday, October 29 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (US Mountain Time), this data set may not be available in the legacy data archive due to a planned system maintenance. Earthdata Cloud access will remain available for data sets that have migrated. Users of the SMAP near real-time products should use the NASA LANCE HTTPS File System for data access.

  • The NSIDC DAAC is retiring access to its legacy, on-premises data archive and transitioning to the NASA Earthdata Cloud as the primary data archive. View planned retirement dates here.

MODIS/Aqua Sea Ice Extent 5-Min L2 Swath 1km, Version 5
Data set id:
MYD29
DOI: 10.5067/59Q02QVBWIQR
There is a more recent version of these data.

Overview

MODIS/Aqua Sea Ice Extent 5-Min L2 Swath 1km (MYD29) data set contains fields for sea ice by reflectance, sea ice by reflectance pixel Quality Assessment (QA), Ice Surface Temperature (IST), IST pixel QA, latitudes, and longitudes in compressed Hierarchical Data Format-Earth Observing System (HDF-EOS) format, along with corresponding metadata. Latitude and longitude geolocation fields are at 5 km resolution, while all other fields are at 1 km resolution. The sea ice algorithm uses a Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) modified for sea ice to distinguish sea ice from open ocean based on reflective characteristics.
Parameter(s):
ICE EXTENT
ICE TEMPERATURE
Platform(s):
Aqua
Sensor(s):
MODIS
Data Format(s):
GeoTIFF
HDF-EOS2
Temporal Coverage:
  • 4 July 2002 to 2 January 2017
Temporal Resolution:
  • 5 minute
Spatial Resolution:
  • 1 km
  • 1 km
Spatial Reference System(s):
Not Specified
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.

Data Access & Tools

This data set has been retired. There is a more recent version of these data.

Help Articles

General Questions & FAQs

For the snow cover and sea ice products, users can use MODIS Collections 6 and 6.1 together.
This article covers frequently asked questions about the NASA NSIDC DAAC's Earthdata cloud migration project and what it means to data users.
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 MODIS 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.
The NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) is migrating its primary data access from its legacy, on-premises archive to the NASA Earthdata Cloud.

How to Articles

Many NSIDC DAAC data sets can be accessed using NSIDC DAAC's Data Access Tool. This tool provides the ability to search and filter data with spatial and temporal constraints using a map-based interface.Users have the option to:
To convert HDF5 files into binary format you will need to use the h5dump utility, which is part of the HDF5 distribution available from the HDF Group. How you install HDF5 depends on your operating system.
The NASA Earthdata Cloud is the NASA cloud-based archive of Earth observations. It is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Learn how to find and access NSIDC DAAC data directly in the cloud.
All data from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) is directly accessible through our HTTPS file system using Wget or curl. This article provides basic command line instructions for accessing data using this method.
This article highlights the NSIDC DAAC data sets available with customization options and outlines a workflow for searching, ordering, and customizing data in NASA Earthdata Search. This approach is ideal for users who want to download data to their local machine.
NASA Worldview is a map interface that allows users to interactively browse imagery, create visualizations, and download the underlying data.
NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS) provides up to date, full resolution imagery for selected NSIDC DAAC data sets.