Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Try the next-generation Data Catalog at catalog-beta.data.gov and help shape it with your feedback.

  • Feedback

    • Sea Ice Index, Version 4

    Metadata Updated: January 15, 2026

    Notice: Due to funding limitations, this data set was recently changed to a “Basic” Level of Service. Learn more about what this means for users and how you can share your story here: Level of Service Update for Data Products. The Sea Ice Index provides a quick look at Arctic- and Antarctic-wide changes in sea ice. It is a source for consistent, up-to-date sea ice extent and concentration images, in PNG format, and data values, in GeoTIFF and ASCII text files, from November 1978 to the present. Sea Ice Index images also depict trends and anomalies in ice cover calculated using a 30-year reference period of 1981 through 2010.The images and data are produced in a consistent way that makes the Index time-series appropriate for use when looking at long-term trends in sea ice cover. Both monthly and daily products are available. However, monthly products are better to use for long-term trend analysis because errors in the daily product tend to be averaged out in the monthly product and because day-to-day variations are often the result of short-term weather.

    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 August 21, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date January 15, 2026

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date August 21, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date January 15, 2026
    Publisher NSIDC;NOAA
    Maintainer
    Identifier 10.7265/a98x-0f50
    Data Last Modified 2026-01-13
    Category Earth Science
    Category Tag 16E15F51 D96E 4051 9124 75665Abdc6Ff "Arctic","Arctic Ocean, Sea Ice and Coasts"
    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 23527c8e-00bc-45d8-bcce-840d9145054d
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://noaadata.apps.nsidc.org/NOAA/G02135/
    Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180.0,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":-39.23,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180.0,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90.0},{"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180.0,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90.0,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180.0,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":30.98}
    Program Code 026:000
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 791b825a1fee026b790c6f5e4fa7787d857a602917125ee0dba4837a18f19c39
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 1978-10-26/1978-10-26

    Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.