New data products, product updates, and other data announcements.

2006 :: 2007 :: 2008

2008 Data News [top]

20 June 2008

NSIDC has recently updated the "Sea Ice Trends and Climatologies from SMMR and SSM/I" data products. These value-added products are now only derived from the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) sea ice data sets: the NASA Team "Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I Passive Microwave" data set and the "Bootstrap Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I" data set. The NASA Team sea ice data now span 1979 – 2007, and the Bootstrap sea ice data  now span 1979 – 2006.

For additional information on the sea ice trends and climatologies, please see the Sea Ice Trends and Climatologies from SMMR and SSM/I product Web site.

If you have any questions, please contact NSIDC User Services.

09 June 2008

Data are now available through December 2007 for the "Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I Passive Microwave" data set.

02 June 2008

Reprocessed Release-28 data are now available for the Laser 1A time period (20 February 2003 to 21 March 2003) for the products GLA05-GLA09 and GLA12-GLA15. Previously these data were released as 228 in the new file naming convention, but they have now been processed to the highest level of processing at 428. For further information on the differences between the 228 and 428 designations, please see the YXX Release Numbers document.

Release-28 provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products. See ICESat/GLAS Data Releases for more information, or contact User Services if you have any questions or for a more complete description.

22 April 2008

The Discovery, Access, and Delivery of Data for IPY (DADDI) search and access system is now available to all IPY data users. This interface provides access to Arctic data from the four DADDI partners: NSIDC, the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center for Biogeochemical Dynamics (ORNL DAAC), and the Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN). In addition, all IPY data registered in the IPY Metadata Portal at the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) are also searchable. The DADDI search system does not replace the GCMD but augments it by providing a different search and presentation interface, including filters and faceted search options. Direct links to data are included in the DADDI search output where sufficient information is provided from the data source.

Access to the DADDI search system is available through the IPY Data and Information Service (IPYDIS) and the DADDI Web page.

14 April 2008

To users of the EOS Data Gateway (EDG): Please note that the Warehouse Inventory Search Tool (WIST) will be replacing the EDG. At the end of April 2008, we are requesting that registered users migrate your user accounts and begin using WIST.  We will send registered users an email with further information on WIST and the migration process.   We also encourage guest users to begin using WIST at the end of April. For more information, contact User Services.

31 March 2008

Release-28 data for the Laser 3I time period (02 October 2007 to 05 November 2007) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This is the first public release of Laser 3I data. Release-28 provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products. See ICESat/GLAS Data Releases for more information, or contact User Services if you have any questions or for a more complete description.

04 March 2008

NSIDC has released the Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Characteristics Derived from Passive Microwave Data data set which is a binary indicator of the state of melt of each pixel on the Greenland ice sheet for each day of observation. The Greenland ice sheet melt extent data, acquired as part of NASA's Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA) program, is a daily estimate of the spatial extent of wet snow on the Greenland ice sheet since 1979. It is derived from SSM/I and SMMR passive microwave satellite brightness temperature characteristics using the cross-polarized gradient ratio (XPGR) of Abdalati and Steffen (1997). The data are provided in a variety of formats including raw data in ASCII format, data in binary format gridded on a Greenland subset of the Northern Hemisphere polar stereographic projection, and annual and complete time series climatologies in binary and GeoTIFF format all at a resolution of 25 km. All data are available via FTP.

22 February 2008

NSIDC has released the Global EASE-Grid 8-day Blended SSM/I and MODIS Snow Cover data set suitable for continental- to hemispheric-scale seasonal fluctuations of snow covered area (SCA) and snow water equivalent (SWE). This data set comprises global, 8-day SWE data from 2000 through 2007, enhanced with snow-covered area derived from MODIS visible wavelength bands.

The new data set blends visible and microwave data at higher temporal resolution (8-day) than NSIDC has offered before; and it is our first snow cover product to be released in netCDF format, specifically at the request of modelers.

Produced in the 25-kilometer Equal-Area Scaleable Earth Grid (EASE-Grid), the new product is unique in blending information from both passive microwave and visible sensors on a global scale for the period when both types of sensor data are available.

16 January 2008

The AVHRR Polar Pathfinder Twice-Daily 5 km EASE-grid Composites data set has been updated. This update extends the time series to 30 June 2005. The data in this update is still considered Version 3. This update includes:

• A change in filename to now include the platform, for example, a14_s005_1996001_1400_albd.v3
  
  where: a14 = NOAA-14.
  
  
• Data beginning on day 2001060 are collected by AVHRR on NOAA-16.
  
  
• A dual Channel 3 is now included for better cloud detection. Channel 3A collects data during the day at 1.6 microns, and Channel 3B collects data during the night at 3.7 microns.
  
  
• Due to a problem with the NOAA-16 scan motor, all the channel data is shifted sporadically between 2001 and 2005, causing the channels to contain data from another channel; thus, the derived parameters also contain errors during this time-period. See Table 12 in the Error Sources section of the data set documentation for specific dates.

2007 Data News [top]

29 December 2007

Erroneous MODIS Version 005 Snow Cover Data

The MODIS/Terra and MODIS/Aqua Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG data products (MOD10C1.v005 and MYD10C1.v005) and the Snow Cover 8-Day L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG data products (MOD10C2.v005 and MYD10C2.v005) were processed with corrupted tile indices as a result of incorrect static input files. Static input files determine and map each tile pixel to the corresponding 0.05-degree pixel in the CMG lat-lon grid.

Reprocessing of the erroneous data for 2003 and 2004 is complete. NSIDC expects to receive 2007 reprocessed data by 07 December 2007. For more detailed information about the errors, please visit the MODIS Land Science Data Discipline Team Web site.

17 December 2007

World Glacier Inventory: More than 34,000 glaciers in China have been added to the World Glacier Inventory. For more information, please see the Quality Assessment and History of Updates section of the data set documentation. To access the new data from this update, proceed to the World Glacier Inventory search page and select "CAREERI, Lanzhou, China. Che/Wu" from the Data Contributor pull-down menu.

11 December 2007

Loss of AMSR-E Aqua GBAD Data

On 2 December 2007, an anomaly developed on the Aqua spacecraft which prevented the production of Ground Based Attitude Determination (GBAD) data. Due to the loss of GBAD data, AMSR-E data production was stopped. Data production resumed on 7 December 2007; however, products are slightly delayed. Production is expected to return to normal by 12 December. All data for 2 December through 6 December is expected to be recovered and will be available from NSIDC.

27 November 2007

NSIDC is exhibiting at the 2007 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco from December 11 - 14. Please stop by and visit NSIDC staff at Booth No. 139.

12 November 2007

NOAA@NSIDC has published Sea Ice Charts of the Russian Arctic in Gridded Format, 1933-2006. These data, from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, are an important new data source for those studying the role of sea ice in climate change.

30 October 2007

NSIDC Metadata Now Accessible: Collection-level metadata are now available on NSIDC's Web site for all data products. You can view this metadata in three different ways: from the catalog page, from a utility, or from an FTP site. The catalog page for each data set now includes a View Metadata Record link below the data set summary, which accesses a dynamically-generated Web page with metadata that conform to the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Directory Interchange Format (DIF) standard (see example). Additional metadata output options on this Web page include DIF in plain text, DIF in Extensible Markup Language (XML), and U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), plain text, and XML. Also, included on this Web page is an interactive Google Map that displays the spatial coverage for the data set.

The second way to view metadata is by using the same utility that created the dynamically-generated Web page to construct your own Web page with your own format and style. For more information on how to do this, please see the get_metadata.pl Web page. In addition, metadata for all of our holdings are also available in XML files for both DIF and FGDC standards at the following FTP site: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/incoming/metadata/. Updated on a daily basis, these FTP folders are provided to allow other organizations to regularly harvest our metadata collection for inclusion in data discovery and access portals.

18 October 2007

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 3C time period (20 May 2005 to 23 June 2005) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This is the first public release of Laser 3C data*, and it is another release of GLAS data with the satellite's attitude in "airplane" mode. Please contact User Services for a more complete description. *Release-28 provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products. See ICESat/GLAS Data Releases for more information.

27 September 2007

Today's update to the Glacier Photograph Collection includes 50 photographs taken between 1890 and 1996. Represented in this batch are Colorado glacier photographs taken by Junius Henderson, Oscar A. Randolph, Rudolph Johnson, and Russell Allen. The glaciers are Andrews, Arapaho, Fair, Isabel, Mills, Saint Vrain and Taylor. Other photos include a series of Franz Josef Glacier (1951-1964), and Harry Fielding Reid images of John Muir's cabin taken in 1890.

25 September 2007

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 3F time period (24 May 2006 to 26 June 2006) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This is the first public release of Laser 3F data*, and it is also the first release of GLAS data with the satellite's attitude in "airplane" mode. Depending on the time of year, the satellite's attitude is changed from airplane to sailboat to accommodate sun angle changes and for power and thermal stability. *Release-28 provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

20 September 2007

The complete times series of Version 4 data for the MODIS/Terra Snow Cover 8-day L3 Global 500m Grid (MOD10A2) product and the MODIS/Terra Snow Cover 8-day L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG (MOD10C2) product are now available from the Data Pool and will remain available indefinitely. The time series extends from Feb 2000 through Dec 2006.

20 September 2007

The complete times series of Version 2 data for the Near Real-Time SSM/I EASE-Grid Daily Global Ice Concentration and Snow Extent product is now available from the Data Pool and will remain available indefinitely. The time series extends from 04 May 1995 through present.

04 September 2007

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 3H time period (12 March 2007 to 14 April 2007) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This is the first public release of Laser 3H data. This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

September 2007

NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce updates to the Glacier Photograph Collection. More than 1,200 photographs of Greenland glaciers have been digitized from slides and are available online for viewing and downloading. The Greenland photograph collection was donated to the World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder in the mid 1980s by Captain Ron Kollmeyer of the U.S. Coast Guard. Captain Kollmeyer was the lead for the Greenland Glacier Survey. The photographs of western Greenland glaciers were taken between 1969 and 1980, from ground observation stations and from U.S. Coast Guard helicopters at an altitude between 100 and 1,000 feet. To access the new data from this update, proceed to http://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/photo_query.html and select "Country" from the available search options. On the next screen choose "Greenland (DK)" from the Country pull-down menu.

07 August 2007

AMSR/ADEOS-II L1A Raw Observation Counts (AMSR_L1A), Version 2: This data set is now available from NSIDC. The data are available for 28 January until 24 October 2003, when the satellite was lost, and are restricted to NASA approved users. For information on becoming a NASA approved user, please go to the Order Data Web page, and refer to the information under the column heading: First Time Users of AMSR/ADEOS-II Data.

August 2007

The World Glacier Inventory has recently been updated. Over 1,600 glaciers from the former Soviet Union were added and errors with 368 glacier IDs were identified and corrected. For more information, please see the "Quality Assessment and History of Updates" section in the data set "Documentation" for further details about these updates. To access the new data from this update, proceed to the World Glacier Inventory search page, and select "Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science. Chernova" from the Data Contributor pull-down menu.

26 July 2007

Trapped Gas Composition and Chronology of the Vostok Ice Core: This AGDC data set includes a time scale for the Vostok ice core, retrieved from Vostok Station on the East Antarctic Plateau. Investigators analyzed the molecular oxygen to nitrogen (O₂/N₂) ratios and the delta oxygen-18 (δ¹⁸O) record for approximately the past 115,000 to 400,000 years in the Vostok ice core.

10 July 2007

Carbon-13 Isotopic Composition of Atmospheric Methane in Firn Air, Siple Dome, Antarctica: This AGDC data set includes records of the delta carbon-13 (d13C) of methane (CH4) in firn air from the South Pole and trapped in bubbles in a short ice core from Siple Dome, Antarctica. Using two firn air samples, investigators reconstructed records of the isotopic composition of paleoatmospheric methane covering the last 2 centuries, from 1820 to 2001.

10 July 2007

Radar Investigations of Antarctic Ice Stream Margins, Siple Dome, 1998: This AGDC data set consists of surface-based radar measurements, including geometry of the bed, surface, and internal layers, and bed reflectivity measurements at two sites along ice stream margins at Siple Dome, Antarctica.

30 June 2007

March through August Ice Edge Positions in the Nordic Seas, 1750-2002: This new NOAA data set contains ice edge positions from ship logbooks, diaries, and other sources, in addition to more recent satellite data products. Data are available as ASCII text, browse images, and as shapefiles (GIS format). This long record sheds light on ice edge variability through regional shifts in climate.

21 June 2007

GLAS/ICESat Laser Altimetry Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of Antarctica and Greenland: These two new digital elevation models (DEMs) of Antarctica and Greenland were derived from GLAS/ICESat laser altimetry profile data and provide new surface elevation grids of the ice sheets and coastal areas, with greater latitudinal extent and fewer slope-related effects than radar altimetry. These DEM data sets were generated from the first seven operational periods (from February 2003 through June 2005) of the GLAS instrument. They are provided on polar stereographic grids at 500 m grid spacing for Antarctica and 1 km grid spacing for Greenland.

8 June 2007

Cosmogenic Radionuclides in the Siple Dome A Ice Core: This AGDC data set includes a record of cosmogenic radionuclide concentrations in the Siple Dome A ice core collected as part of the West Antarctic ice core program. The investigators measured profiles of both ¹⁰Be and ³⁶Cl in the entire ice core, which spans the time period from the present to about 100,000 years before present.

22 May 2007

Paleoenvironment, Geomorphic Processes, and Carbon Stocks of Drained Thaw-lake Basins in the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska, USA, 2002-2005: This ARCSS data set is from a study of the origin and associated geomorphological, ecological, and pedological processes of thaw-lake basins of the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska. Investigators used radiometric dating, microfossil analysis, and soil development to determine whether carbon accumulation rates respond to regional changes in climate, or if they are influenced by local rates of plant succession.

18 May 2007

High-Resolution Rectified Aerial Photography for Collaborative Research of Environmental Change at Barrow, Alaska, USA: This ARCSS data set includes aerial photography of Barrow, Alaska, which has been geocorrected to a 2002 QuickBird satellite image or Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR) imagery. Photography included in the set is from eight specific dates, which span from 1948 to 1997: 4 August 1948, 29 July 1949, 12-14 August 1955, 12-24 August 1962, 14 July 1964, 15 July 1979, 31 August 1984, and 16 July 1997.

9 May 2007

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 1 time period (20 February 2003 to 21 March 2003) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

7 May 2007

NSIDC Atlas of the Cryosphere: The NSIDC Atlas of the Cryosphere is a dynamic mapping Web site that allows the visitor to explore the Earth's frozen regions. Viewed from a polar perspective, the available scenes includes snow cover, sea ice extent and concentration, glaciers, permafrost, and other critical components of the Earth's cryosphere. The user can zoom in to a specific region on the Earth as well as overlay country borders, major cities, and other geographic information.

24 April 2007

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 3G time period (25 October 2006 to 27 November 2006) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

22 April 2007

Good Days on the Trail, 1938-1942 was shown as part of the University of Colorado International Film Series. The film, with color footage of CU students on alpine hikes, provides a glimpse into the mountaineering lifestyle of an earlier time, along with shots of Arapaho Glacier and other Front Range glaciers. Scientists from NSIDC and the CU Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research narrated. The film is being preserved and digitized with support from the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center and the Climate Database Modernization Program.

30 March 2007

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 2A time period (25 September 2003 to 18 November 2003) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

19 March 2007

Vertical Strain at Siple Dome, Antarctica, 1999-2002: This AGDC data set consists of a table of long-term average strain rates measured between 1999 and 2002 at Siple Dome, Antarctica as a part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Cores (WAISCORES) project for deep ice coring in West Antarctica.

19 March 2007

Model Output Assessing Net Carbon Exchange Across the Arctic Tundra-Boreal Forest Transition in Alaska, 1981-2000: This ARCSS data set includes simulated temporal and spatial patterns of net carbon exchange in Alaskan ecosystems that span the transition from Arctic tundra to boreal forest. Investigators modeled net carbon storage along with vegetation and soil carbon and nitrogen pools in tundra, shrub tundra, and tree line evergreen conifer forest ecosystems using the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) 5.0.

16 February 2007

Oxygen and Deuterium Isotope Measurements from Siberia, 2002-2004: This ARCSS data set contains measurements from a stable isotope analysis of rain, snow, the Kolyma River, and a local stream near Cherskii, Siberia. As part of the Russian-American Initiative on Shelf-land Environments (RAISE) program, this research was designed to quantify the impacts of disturbance on the seasonal cycle of atmospheric carbon dioxide and the discharge of carbon and nitrogen into the Arctic Ocean in forest and shrubby tundra regions.

26 January 2007

Mooring and Drifting Buoy Data: Beaufort Gyre Freshwater Experiment, 2003: This brokered product, supported by the ADCC, contains temperature time series, salinity, current, sea ice draft, and bottom pressure measurements. Investigators established an observational program to measure the freshwater content (in sea ice and in the ocean) of freshwater fluxes in the Beaufort Gyre using moorings and drifting buoys during the summer of 2003.

17 January 2007

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 3A time period (03 October 2004 to 08 November 2004) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This is the first public release of Laser 3A data for some altimetry products. This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

16 January 2007

MODIS/Terra: The complete time series of MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V004 (MOD10C1 V004) data is now available through the online Data Pool and will remain there indefinitely.

16 January 2007

MODIS/Aqua Version 5 Snow and Sea Ice Products: NSIDC is pleased to announce the release of Version 5 (V005) reprocessed MODIS/Aqua snow products, which contain several improvements over the previous versions. For example, monthly snow products are available in a Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) format, fractional snow cover was added to MYD10_L2 and MYD10A1 products, browse images are available for all products, Sea Ice by Ice Surface Temperature (IST) and combined sea ice fields were removed, and all products use HDF compression making the file size much smaller.

2006 Data News[top]

28 December 2006

MODIS/Terra Version 5 Snow Products: NSIDC is pleased to announce the release of Version 5 (V005) reprocessed MODIS/Terra snow products, which contain several improvements over the previous versions. For example, monthly snow products are available in a Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) format, fractional snow cover was added to MOD10_L2 and MOD10A1 products, browse images are available for all products, and all products use HDF compression making the file size much smaller.

27 December 2006

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 3B time period (17 February to 24 March 2005) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

20 December 2006

Coring Data from Drained Thaw-Lake Basins of the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska: This ARCSS data set includes measurements and observations from drained thaw-lake basin (DTLB) cores retrieved from Barrow and Atqasuk, Alaska in April and August of 2001 through 2003.

8 December 2006

MODIS/Terra Version 5 Sea Ice Products: NSIDC is pleased to announce the release of Version 5 (V005) reprocessed MODIS/Terra sea ice products, which contain several improvements over the previous versions. For example, Sea Ice by Ice Surface Temperature (IST) and combined sea ice fields were removed, browse images are now available, and all V005 products use HDF compression making the file size much smaller.

8 December 2006

AMSR-E/Aqua Daily EASE-Grid Brightness Temperatures: NSIDC produces AMSR-E gridded brightness temperature data by interpolating AMSR-E data to the output grids from swath space using an inverse-distance squared method. Data for the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere EASE-Grid projections, at 25 km resolution, are now available. Data begin 19 June 2002, and processing is ongoing.

7 December 2006

SHEBA Upper Ocean CTD and Thermal Microstructure, Western Arctic Ocean: This ARCSS data set includes conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) measurements along with turbulent thermal variance, turbulent kinetic energy, and vertical temperature gradient data collected from 12 October 1997 to 30 September 1998 in the Western Arctic Ocean.

14 November 2006

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 2B time period (17 February to 21 March 2004) are available for all 15 GLAS products (GLA10 and GLA11 coverage to 4 March 2004). This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

8 November 2006

National Ice Center Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies in Gridded Format: The U.S. National Ice Center (NIC) is an interagency NOAA, Navy, and Coast Guard operational sea ice analysis and forecasting center. Since 1972, NIC has produced weekly or biweekly Arctic and Antarctic sea ice charts. These analyses are produced using available in situ, remotely sensed, and model data sources. They are generated primarily for mission planning and safety of navigation. Overall, the record of sea ice concentration from the NIC series is believed to be more accurate than that from passive microwave sensors, especially from the mid-1990s on. This data set is an Arctic sea ice concentration climatology derived from the chart series. The climatology consists of median, maximum, minimum, first quartile, and 3rd quartile concentrations as well as frequency of occurrence of ice at any concentration for 33 year, 10 year, and 5 year periods.

7 November 2006

Atmospheric Nitrate Isotopic Analysis at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, A Twenty-Five Year Record:This AGDC data set contains snow pit measurements of oxygen isotopes in nitrate and ion concentrations, along with supplementary surface measurements of oxygen isotopes in nitrate and in nitrate aerosols from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica.

1 November 2006

Resource Allocation and Allometry of Plant Growth at Selected Sites in the Arctic: 2003-2005 Growing Seasons: This ARCSS data set consists of measurements from Arctic field sites during the summer months from 5 July 2003 to 5 August 2005 as part of the Land-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions (LAII) International Tundra Experiment (ITEX). Investigators designed this research, which compares an extensive range of vegetation types that exists in widely-separated sites, to help identify the relative vulnerability of different vegetation types, plant functional types, and species to climate change and other forms of disturbances.

31 October 2006

Subglacial Topography: Airborne Geophysical Survey of the Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica: This AGDC data set includes 5 km gridded data from the Airborne Geophysical Survey of the Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica (AGASEA) conducted during the 2004-2005 austral summer. Investigators derived maps of the ice sheet surface and subglacial topography, which covers the entire catchments of both the Thwaites Glacier and the Pine Islands Glacier, from airborne survey systems mounted on a Twin Otter aircraft.

30 October 2006

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 3D time period (21 October 2005 to 24 November 2005) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products.

25 October 2006

Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I Passive Microwave Data: An update for this product is now available. Changes include new “preliminary” data for users who need more current data, new file naming, a new FTP directory structure, and updated documentation.

25 October 2006

Near Real-Time DMSP SSM/I Daily Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations: An update for this product is now available. Changes include new binary data format, new file naming, a new FTP directory structure, and updated documentation.

18 October 2006

AWS Data: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and Their Potential Effect on Ice Core Interpretation: This AGDC data set contains automated weather station (AWS) data from two sites on the East Antarctic Plateau where investigators conducted field research on the Antarctic megadunes. The stations collected snow/firn temperature, air temperature, air pressure, and wind data from 16 January 2004 to 17 November 2004.

16 October 2006

ICESat/GLAS: Release-28 data for the Laser 3E time period (22 February 2006 to 27 March 2006) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA15. This release provides numerous enhancements, such as improved corrections for saturation effects, improved flags to aid users in data selection, and better descriptions of the altimetry products. See ICESat/GLAS Data Releases for more information, including details about a change in file names with this release.

29 September 2006

Monthly Mean Precipitation Sums at Russian Arctic Stations, 1966-1990: This NOAA data product includes measurements from 216 Russian Arctic stations to fill gaps in the historical precipitation record that are needed for applications including reanalysis validation and study of changing climate.

28 September 2006

Time Series of Seasonally Frozen Ground Depth in the Russian Arctic, 1930-1990: This ARCSS data set consists of seasonally frozen ground depth measurements based on soil temperatures in the Russian Arctic. Investigators constructed a record that extends from 1930 to 1990 using data from 211 ground-based stations.

28 September 2006

Estimating Sea Ice Floe Velocities to Characterize Whaling Seasons Using Satellite Imagery of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, Spring 2000 and 2001: This ARCSS data set contains SAR images from the RADARSAT and the ERS - 2 satellites along with broadband visible and infrared images from the AVHRR satellite. Data cover two spring whaling seasons in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas from March to June in 2000 and 2001.

15 September 2006

Submarine Upward Looking Sonar Ice Draft Profile Data and Statistics: Sixteen cruises were added to this NOAA@NSIDC data set, markedly increasing the spatial and temporal coverage of these data that are used for sea ice thickness estimates.

22 August 2006

Firn Air Chemistry Observations from Siple Dome, 1996, and the South Pole, 2001: This AGDC data set includes gas ratios in polar firn air. Investigators sampled air from bubbles in the firn-ice transition region to observe and model the processes of gravitational settling, thermal fractionation, and preferential exclusion within the Antarctic snowpack.

31 July 2006

DMSP SSM/I Daily Polar Gridded Brightness Temperatures: NSIDC is now distributing Version 2 of this data set. Changes include reprocessing to correct an error in 1987-1999 data, full distribution via FTP, conversion from HDF to binary, and a new file naming convention. See the online documentation for more information.

21 July 2006

North Pole Environmental Observatory PMEL/CRREL 2000-2003 Ice Temperature and Mass Balance Buoy Data: This ADCC data set contains ice temperature and mass balance data from drifting ice buoys near the North Pole in the Central Basin of the Arctic Ocean. Buoys were deployed each April by the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL).

13 June 2006

GPR and GPS Data: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and their Potential Effects on Ice Core Interpretation: This AGDC data set contains ground penetrating radar (GPR) data showing surface morphology and internal layering structure along with global positioning system (GPS) data collected within an area of 60 km² on the East Antarctic Plateau.

24 May 2006

ICESat/GLAS: Release-26 data for the Laser 2A time period (25 September to 18 November 2003) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA15. See ICESat/GLAS Data Releases for more information.

4 May 2006

ICESat/GLAS: Release-26 data for the Laser 2B time period (17 February to 21 March 2004) are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA015. See ICESat/GLAS Data Releases for more information.

10 March 2006

Repeat Photography of Glaciers: This collection matches photos of glaciers taken as early as the 1890s with recent photos taken at the same physical location. The photos tell a captivating visual story of the changes glaciers have experienced through time.

17 March 2006

ICESat/GLAS: Release-26 data are available for the following products: GLA01 - GLA09 and GLA12 - GLA015. This release covers the Laser 3D time period (21 October to 24 November 2005). Significant changes to the altimetry products include a range correction for saturation and several changes to the alternate fit waveforms. Several new MET parameters were added to the atmospheric products. See ICESat/GLAS Data Releases for more information.

14 February 2006

Northern Hemisphere Seasonal and Intermittent Frozen Ground Areas 1901-2000: This FGDC data set contains monthly values of the total exposed land area of seasonally frozen ground and annual values for intermittently frozen ground in the Northern Hemisphere. Seasonally frozen ground is defined as the near-surface soil that experiences freeze for more than 15 days per year, while intermittently frozen ground experiences fewer than 15 days of freeze per year.

13 February 2006

Cloud-Radiation Feedback: Boundary Layer Cloud Microphysical Properties and Processes: This ADCC data set contains Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) cloud microphysical data collected onboard the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) C-130 aircraft.

13 February 2006

Compilation of Antarctic Radar Data, Siple Coast, 2000-2002: This AGDC data set contains ground-based, ice-penetrating radar profiles across satellite-detected lineations and terrains that were taken in the lower reaches of Ross Ice Stream C, also known as the Kamb Ice Stream (KIS); on Roosevelt Island; on the Siple Dome; and on the Shabtaie Ice Ridge.

13 February 2006

SMEX02 Land Surface Information: Soils Database: This Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) data set includes ESRI shapefiles containing geographic information such as railroads, roads, and stream locations; drainage features; political boundaries; and soil classifications for 10 Iowa counties.

7 February 2006

Arctic EASE-Grid Freeze and Thaw Depths, 1901 - 2002: This FGDC data set contains mean, median, minimum and maximum freeze and thaw depths for each year from 1901 to 2002 on the 25 km EASE-Grid for areas north of 50°. Freeze and thaw depths are estimated using a variant of the Stefan solution that uses an edaphic factor and freezing or thawing indices as inputs.

6 January 2006

Timing and Statistics of Autumn and Spring Annual Snow Cover for the Northern Hemisphere: This NOAA data set includes the timing of snow cover onset in the fall, the timing of last observed snow cover in the spring and the snow-free duration from 1972 to 2000.

6 January 2006

The Dehn Collection of Arctic Sea Ice Charts, (1953-1986): This NOAA data set includes almost 4,000 charts that have been scanned and are now available online. A search and order interface allows users to submit orders for high-resolution TIFF images.

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