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NASA SCP Arctic and Antarctic Ice Extent from QuikSCAT, 1999-2009, Version 2

Metadata Updated: September 22, 2025

This data set provides sea ice extent for the Arctic (60-90 degrees North) and Antarctic (52-90 degrees South) in Scatterometer Image Reconstruction (SIR) binary image format, along with ASCII text files containing latitude and longitude coordinates along the sea ice edge, and browse images of SIR files in Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) format. Ancillary products include daily-averaged total sea ice extent in ASCII format. Estimates of sea ice extent were produced from daily-averaged QuikSCAT sigma-0 measurements and extend from 19 July 1999 to 31 December 2009.QuikSCAT obtains 12 individual radar normalized backscatter (sigma-0) measurements, called slices, for each footprint as it scans over a 1800 km wide swath. Slices are typically 4 to 6 km long by 20 km wide. The summed measurements of the slices are called egg measurements. The effective resolution and shape of each egg measurement is approximately 20 by 30 km, depending on the antenna beam and instrument mode. This data set contains both slice and egg images for each day.The Microwave Earth Remote Sensing (MERS) group at Brigham Young University (BYU) developed a SIR-with-filtering (SIRF) algorithm that combines forward- and aft-looking sigma-0 measurements to produce enhanced-resolution backscatter images over various azimuth angles. The polarization ratio, incidence angle dependence, and the sigma-0 estimate error standard deviation were used to discriminate between sea ice and ocean. Sea ice extent was estimated for both slice and egg images. The nominal pixel resolution of the slice images is 2.225 km with an estimated effective resolution of approximately 4 km. Egg images have a nominal pixel resolution of 4.45 km with an estimated effective resolution of approximately 8 to 10 km.Data and browse images are available via FTP, along with C, Fortran, and Interactive Data Language (IDL) tools to read and display the SIR images.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date June 18, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 22, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 18, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 22, 2025
Publisher NASA NSIDC DAAC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/MFAOHTY3YK34
Data Last Modified 2025-09-11
Category Earth Science
Category Tag 16E15F51 D96E 4051 9124 75665Abdc6Ff "Arctic","Arctic Ocean, Sea Ice and Coasts","Melting Glaciers, Snow and Ice"
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id d2c7e380-f671-4bb4-b4cd-19475d680659
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://daacdata.apps.nsidc.org/pub/DATASETS/nsidc0265_QuikSCAT_ice_extent/
Old Spatial
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 1b075a4a739336a79916340d0b77da4826f337ab67681dae5e0888be1b6c35e7
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 1999-07-19/1999-07-19

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