Images of Antarctic Ice Shelves, Version 2
Data set id:
NSIDC-0102
DOI: 10.5067/W87VCY3CW0MJ
This is the most recent version of these data.
Version Summary
Version Summary
This data set was transferred to the NSIDC DAAC and forward processing of MODIS data is now being carried out by the NSIDC Data Production Team.
Overview
Images of Antarctic Ice Shelves is a data set created as part of an effort to closely monitor major ice streams and outlet glaciers along the Antarctic coast, with a focus on the ice shelves considered the most susceptible to rapid change due to climatic warming and those that occasionally calve major icebergs. This monitoring effort began using AVHRR 1 Km images from several NOAA polar-orbiting satellites, and later included MODIS images from both Terra and Aqua. The scenes are derived from either the visible or the thermal channels. AVHRR images are available from August 1989 to October 2001, while MODIS images are available from March 2000 to present. New images processed from the MODIS Level 1B Calibrated Radiances are provided every month.
Parameter(s):
ICEBERGSICE SHELVESINFRARED IMAGERYVISIBLE IMAGERY
Platform(s):
Aqua, NOAA-10, NOAA-11, NOAA-12, NOAA-14, NOAA-15, NOAA-16, Terra
Sensor(s):
AVHRR, MODIS
Data Format(s):
PNG, GeoTIFF, JPEG
Temporal Coverage:
12 August 1989 to 14 October 2001
3 March 2000 to present
3 March 2000 to present
Temporal Resolution:
- Varies
Spatial Resolution:
- varies
- varies
Spatial Reference System(s):
WGS 84 / Antarctic Polar Stereographic
EPSG:3031
Spatial Coverage:
N:
-50
S:
-90
E:
180
W:
-180
Blue outlined yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.
Strengths and Limitations
Strengths
- The collection provides curated, pre-selected images from the MODIS sensor with low cloud obscuration covering specific ice shelf regions of high interest to the polar science community.
- The image collection spans from 2000 to the present, providing a quarter-century time series of ice shelf imagery.
- The collection contains both thermal images (collected during austral fall and winter) and visible-band images (collected during spring and summer), providing observations from all seasons and year-round observations.
- The images are geolocated, and a locator image is provided with a lat-long grid for most of the ice shelves in the archive.
Limitations
- The collection is somewhat irregular in time; there are gaps of up to several months in the image series.
- The collection does not cover the entire coast of Antarctica, though it does cover all major ice shelves.
- The record is less extensive for some shelf areas in particularly cloudy regions, or for the more recent regions we selected to archive.
- It can be difficult to distinguish clouds from ice in some imagery.
References
Haug, T., Kääb, A. and Skvarca, P., 2010. Monitoring ice shelf velocities from repeat MODIS and Landsat data–a method study on the Larsen C ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, and 10 other ice shelves around Antarctica. The Cryosphere, 4(2), pp.161-178. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-4-161-2010
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