Arctic Sea Ice Melt Pond Statistics and Maps, 1999-2001

101 high-resolution satellite images from four Arctic Ocean sites were classified to map melt ponds on sea ice during three summers. The dataset includes tables of pond coverage and size statistics for 500-meter grid cells, derived from surface type maps with a 1-meter resolution. Data are stored in Excel, ASCII, and GeoTIFF formats, providing both processed statistics and the original image-derived products.

Use Cases

• Modeling sea ice albedo and heat flux based on melt pond fraction statistics.
• Analyzing interannual variability of melt pond coverage from 1999 to 2001.
• Validating satellite-derived ice concentration algorithms using high-resolution classification maps.
• Studying melt pond size distribution and geometry within 10 km square image cells.

Strengths

• Includes 101 analyzed images with hand-masked clouds and supervised maximum likelihood classification.
• Provides statistics at a fine 500 m grid scale from imagery with 1-meter resolution.
• Covers three summer seasons (1999-2001) across four distinct Arctic Ocean sites.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: column names, row counts, and specific license terms are unknown.
• Conflicting freshness: one platform lists a last update in 2026, while the authoritative source indicates data collection ended in 2001.
• Imagery is irregularly spaced in time, limiting consistent temporal analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Supervised maximum likelihood classification of visible band satellite imagery.

Time Range

1999-08 to 2001-09

Freshness

2026-03-13 (from datagov), but primary data collection ended 2001-09-30.

Geography

Four sites within the median extent of the perennial Arctic ice pack.