NOAA@NSIDC Releases Sea Ice Index Version 2

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce the release of Sea Ice Index Version 2. Improvements include using the most recently available version of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) input sea ice concentration data and revising three computations in the Sea Ice Index processing code. The new GSFC data have undergone additional manual quality control procedures at the GSFC that go farther to remove spurious ice. The GSFC data are available as their own data set from the NSIDC DAAC as Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Passive Microwave Data. The other three updates adjust calculations present in the old Sea Ice Index processing code that were in need of improvement. Because of these updates, minor changes in some of the ice extent and area numbers can be seen with the average change in the trends over all 12 months being on the order of 0.05 percent/decade (approximately 500 sq. km/year). Data Set DOI: https://doi.org/10.7265/N5736NV7