ECCO V4r4: Daily Sea-Ice Velocity on LLC90 Grid, 1992-2017

Global daily-averaged sea-ice velocity data on the native Lat-Lon-Cap 90 grid, produced by the ECCO Version 4 Release 4 ocean and sea-ice state estimate. The dataset is a dynamically consistent reconstruction from NASA, covering the period from 1992-01-01 to 2018-01-01. It assimilates observations from multiple satellite missions and in-situ programs including altimeters, radiometers, and conductivity-temperature-depth sensors.

Use Cases

• Modeling sea-ice drift and deformation patterns based on daily velocity fields.
• Analyzing long-term trends in polar ice motion based on the 26-year time series.
• Validating or calibrating other sea-ice models using the observationally constrained ECCO state estimate.
• Studying ocean-ice-atmosphere coupling using the kinematically consistent reconstruction.

Strengths

• Covers a 26-year time series from 1992 to 2017.
• Assimilates data from over 10 distinct satellite missions and in-situ observation programs.
• Provides data on a specialized LLC90 model grid designed for global ocean modeling.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data freshness should be verified as the last metadata update is listed for a future date (2026-03 13).

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Dynamically and kinematically consistent reconstruction (state estimate) from the MIT general circulation model (MITgcm), fit to observations in a least-squares sense.

Time Range

1992-01-01T12:00:00 to 2018-01-01T00:00:00

Freshness

Last metadata update listed as 2026-03-13 03:03:05.553293.

Geography

Global