NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce the release of sea ice chart data resulting from collaboration with the U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC) called the U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Concentration and Climatologies in Gridded Format.
On a weekly basis, USNIC produces analyst-drawn Arctic- and Antarctic-wide charts that have information on sea ice concentration, stage of development, and form. These charts characterize ice with a level of detail and accuracy that is unmatched by satellite data-derived products. NSIDC extracts and condenses information contained in these ice charts and converts them from their vector shapefile format to 10 km NetCDF and GeoTIFF gridded formats. The resulting fields of ice concentration by type are suitable for research uses such as validating algorithms for satellite data and corroborating ice forecast model predictions.
The time series of gridded total ice concentration, multiyear ice concentration, first-year ice concentration, thin ice concentration, and fast ice extent begins in January 2003 and continues into the present. Shapefiles and period-of-record, 5-year, and 10-year climatological averages for these fields are provided as well.
This data product updates and improves an earlier product of Arctic only USNIC charts in a 25 km gridded format covering 1972 through 2007 called the National Ice Center Arctic Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies in Gridded Format.
To access this new data set, visit the U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Concentration and Climatologies in Gridded Format data set landing page.
Data Set DOI: https://doi.org/10.7265/46cc-3952
