Arctic Freeze and Thaw Depths on EASE-Grid, 1901-2002

This dataset provides annual mean, median, minimum, and maximum freeze and thaw depths for the Arctic north of 50° latitude from 1901 to 2002. It is modeled on a 25 km resolution EASE-Grid using a variant of the Stefan solution, with inputs from land surface types and freezing/thawing indices. The data is produced by the NSIDC and is available as ASCII files via FTP.

Use Cases

• Analyzing century-long trends in seasonal ground freezing depth using the annual mean and median depth values.
• Modeling permafrost vulnerability by correlating thaw depth statistics with climate indices.
• Mapping spatial variability of ground thermal regimes across the Arctic using the gridded latitude and longitude coordinates.
• Calibrating soil thermal models by comparing simulated freeze/thaw cycles against the provided minimum and maximum depth estimates.

Strengths

• Provides a century-long temporal record (1901-2002) for analyzing long-term trends.
• Offers multiple statistical measures (mean, median, min, max) for each annual depth estimate.
• Uses a standardized 25 km EASE-Grid for consistent spatial analysis across the Arctic.

Limitations

• Specific row counts and total dataset size are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date (2002-12-31 vs. 2026-03-13), suggesting potential metadata inconsistency.
• Column names and detailed data structure within the ASCII files are unknown.

Provenance

Source

NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center)

Collection Method

Estimated using a variant of the Stefan solution with edaphic factor and freezing/thawing indices from Zhang et al. (2005).

Time Range

1901 to 2002

Freshness

2026-03-13 15:02:08.710883

Geography

Areas north of 50 degrees latitude in the Northern Hemisphere.