Global Daily Snow and Sea Ice Surface Temperature

  • Released Saturday, September 25, 2004
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This animation shows the global advance and retreat of daily snow cover along with daily sea ice surface temperature over the Northern Hemisphere from September 2002 through May 2003. The snow cover was measured by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, while the sea ice surface temperature was measured by the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite. Since these instruments cannot take measurements through clouds, in cloud-covered regions or areas with suspect data quality, the prior day's value is retained until a valid data reading is obtained. This visualization designates an area as covered by snow when the instrument takes a valid measurement showing greater than ~50% snow coverage in that area. This area is assumed to be snow covered until the instrument takes a valid measurement showing less than 40% snow coverage in that same area. A color bar indicates the sea ice surface temperature values. The satellite instruments are unable to collect data through darkness. The region in polar darkness is shown as a gray cap over the pole that grows and shrinks seasonally. A date slider indicates the progression of time. SeaWiFS Land Reflectance shows the seasonal changes in land cover.

This animation shows the daily advance and retreat of snow cover, and sea ice surface temperature over the Northern Hemisphere during the
winter of 2002-2003. Snow cover over the tip of South America is also shown during the summer of 2000.

This image shows the snow cover and sea ice surface temperature on March 15, 2003.

This image shows the snow cover and sea ice surface temperature on March 15, 2003.

This color bar shows the colors used to represent the sea ice surface temperature. The coldest water is shown in light blue. The warmest sea ice is shown in shades of pink. As the sea ice surface temperatures cool below -15 degrees Celsius, the color is shown in shades of purple. The sea ice surface below -28 degrees Celsius is shown in shades of blue-grey.

This color bar shows the colors used to represent the sea ice surface temperature. The coldest water is shown in light blue. The warmest sea ice is shown in shades of pink. As the sea ice surface temperatures cool
below -15 degrees Celsius, the color is shown in shades of purple. The sea ice
surface below -28 degrees Celsius is shown in shades of blue-grey.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become DigitalGlobe).

This page was originally published on Saturday, September 25, 2004.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:56 PM EDT.

Missions

This page is related to the following missions:

Series

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Datasets used

  • Sea Ice Extent and Ice Surface Temperature Daily L3 Global 4km EASE-Grid Day (MYD29E1D) [Aqua: MODIS]

    ID: 253
    Sensor: MODIS Dates used: 2002/07/01 - 2003/05/31

    This dataset can be found at: http://nsidc.org/data/myd29e1d.html

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • Monthly Land Reflectance [SeaStar: SeaWiFS]

    ID: 472
    Sensor: SeaWiFS

    All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye.

    Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become one DigitalGlobe.).

    This dataset can be found at: http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/PRODUCTS/

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG (MOD10C1) [Terra: MODIS]

    ID: 504
    Sensor: MODIS Dates used: 2002/07/01 - 2003/05/31, 2000/05/01 - 2000/10/31
    See all pages that use this dataset

Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.