Data Announcements

The EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Version 4 data set, accessible through the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC), has been updated to Version 4.1. This minor version update corresponds with a new file naming convention and has not impacted data values. The new file names are described in the data set documentation, accessible here: https://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0611.

The Polar Pathfinder Daily 25 km EASE-Grid Sea Ice Motion Vectors, Version 4 data set, accessible through the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC), has been updated to Version 4.1. This update corrects previously reported errors in addition to the changes described below:

The SMAP Level-2 and Level-3 standard and enhanced radiometer soil moisture products from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) are being updated in summer 2019. The Level-2 updates will introduce an improved version of the existing Dual Channel Algorithm, DCA (option 3). The new version, known as M-DCA, achieves better retrieval performance by modeling the mixing of vertically and horizontally polarized brightness temperature channels and using new estimates of single-scattering albedo and roughness coefficients.

The Bootstrap Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS, Version 3 data set, available through the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC), has been updated through 31 December 2018. This data set consists of daily (provided every other day prior to July 1987) and monthly sea ice concentrations derived from brightness temperature measurements.

The High Mountain Asia LIS Model Terrestrial Hydrological Parameters, Version 1 data set is now available at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). This data set contains estimates of water, energy fluxes, and land surface states that were simulated using the Noah-Multiparameterization Land Surface Model (Noah-MP LSM) Version 3.6 within the NASA Land Information System (LIS) Version 7.2.

The IceBridge DMS L3 Ames Stereo Pipeline Orthorectified Images, Version 1 data set is now available in its entirety, from 16 October 2009 to 25 July 2017, at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). This data set represents a collection of orthorectified images obtained by processing Operation IceBridge DMS stereo images and lidar data using the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline.

The IceBridge DMS L3 Ames Stereo Pipeline Photogrammetric DEM, Version 1 data set is now available in its entirety, from 16 October 2009 to 25 July 2017, at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). This data set represents a collection of digital elevation models (DEMs) obtained by processing Operation IceBridge DMS stereo images and lidar data using the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline.

The download location has changed for the MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica 2008-2009 (MOA2009) Image Map, Version 1, which is now part of the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). This data set provides snow grain size and surface morphology derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) over Antarctica during the 2008-2009 austral summer season. Data set DOI: https://doi.org/10.7265/N5KP8037

The IceBridge Radar L3 Tomographic Ice Thickness data set has been updated to version 2 at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). New in version 2, this data set presents ice thickness errors in addition to ice thickness measurements over areas of Greenland and Antarctica, two of the files contain bed elevation measurements, the files have been converted to netCDF4 from HDF5 and contain more robust metadata.

The NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) has been informed of errors in the Polar Pathfinder Daily 25 km EASE-Grid Sea Ice Motion Vectors, Version 4 data set, released on 15 March 2019. NSIDC DAAC is working with the data provider to correct the errors. We will notify users when corrected files are available. For the daily ice motion files, the v field was incorrectly saved as an integer value instead of a floating point value.

SMAP ancillary data sets are now available at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). These data sets are used to create SMAP Level-1, -2, -3, and -4 products and are made available as part of NSIDC DAAC’s mandate to preserve all SMAP data and related information for future research. Several of these ancillary data sets are produced by external organizations, such as NOAA@NSIDC, the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), and NASA Land Data Assimilation Systems (LDAS). 

The AMSR-E/AMSR2 Unified L3 Daily 6.25 km Polar Gridded 89 GHz Brightness Temperatures, Version 1 data set available at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) has been updated to reflect a new version. The data file names are now designated with a B02 Product Maturity Code.

The AMSR-E/AMSR2 Unified L3 Daily 25 km Brightness Temperatures & Sea Ice Concentration Polar Grid Version 1 data set available at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) has been reprocessed to correct an issue with the parameter designation (indexing) with the brightness temperature values in the B01 product. The file names for the data set have changed to reflect this update and are now designated with a B02 Product Maturity Code.

The Polar Pathfinder Daily 25 km EASE-Grid Sea Ice Motion Vectors, Version 4 data set is now available at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). Version 4 of this data set includes improved filtering of the SSMI inputs, an update to the method for merging the input ice motion vectors, and an update to the averaging of the input buoy data. This data set provides daily and weekly sea ice motion vectors including browse images of the weekly data.

The High Mountain Asia Gridded Glacier Thickness Change from Multi-Sensor DEMs, Version 1 data set is now available at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). This data set contains gridded thickness change measurements for approximately 650 Himalayan glaciers between 1975 and 2000, and 1040 Himalayan glaciers between 2000 and 2016. These data were derived from KH-9 HEXAGON and ASTER digital elevation models (DEMs) and are provided at a spatial resolution of 30 m.

The EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Version 4 data set is now available at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). This data set provides weekly estimates of sea ice age for the Arctic derived from remotely sensed sea ice motion and sea ice extent. The Version 4 input data are derived from the Polar Pathfinder Daily 25 km EASE-Grid Sea Ice Motion Vectors, Version 4 data set and the temporal coverage has been extended from 01 January 1984 to 31 December 2018.

The Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Passive Microwave Data, Version 1 data set accessible from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) has been updated through 31 December 2018. This data set is generated from brightness temperature data and is designed to provide a consistent time series of sea ice concentrations spanning the coverage of several passive microwave instruments.

The SnowEx17 Radiometrics Surface-Based Radiometer Brightness Temperatures, Version 1 data set is now available at the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC). This data set consists of surface-based radiometer (SBR) brightness temperatures of the snow surface and vegetation for 37 locations across Grand Mesa, CO. The data were collected during the NASA 2017 SnowEx campaign from 14 February 2017 through 18 February 2017.

The Landsat 8 Ice Speed of Antarctica (LISA), Version 1 data set, is now available at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. This data set, as part of the Global Land Ice Velocity Extraction from Landsat (GoLIVE) project, provides a compilation of Antarctic ice flow velocity mappings generated from pairs of Landsat 8 panchromatic images between 1 July 2013 to 30 April 2017. The data are provided at a gridded spatial resolution of 750 m.

The process of accessing data from NSIDC is evolving, and with it, the design and function of data set landing pages. The first improvements, released on March 6, reorganize the layout of these pages. The most noticeable change will be the consolidation of data download functionality in a single tab, as illustrated below.