Gridded Sea Ice Thickness from Multiple Altimeter Sources

Long-term mean spring ice thickness fields are provided on 100 km EASE grids. Data is derived from ERS-1 (1993-2001), CryoSat (2011-2013), ICESat (2004-2009), Operation IceBridge (2009-2014), and submarine sonar (1986 onward) sources. The dataset was produced by NSIDCV0 and last updated in 2014.

Use Cases

• Analyze long-term trends in mean spring ice thickness across the 100 km EASE grid cells.
• Compare ice thickness estimates derived from different sensor types like radar altimeters, laser altimeters, and upward-looking sonar.
• Validate sea ice models using the gridded, multi-source observational thickness fields.
• Study regional variations in ice thickness by examining the spatially averaged grid cell values.

Strengths

• Data combines measurements from 5 distinct observational platforms over multiple decades.
• Observations are regridded to a consistent 100 km EASE grid for spatial comparability.

Limitations

• The dataset provides only mean spring thickness, not continuous time series for other seasons.
• Data sources have different temporal coverages, creating gaps in the long-term record.
• The last update was in 2014, making the record stale for recent climate studies.

Provenance

Source

NSIDCV0 via NASA Earthdata.

Collection Method

Derived from satellite and airborne altimeters (ERS-1, CryoSat, ICESat, IceBridge) and submarine upward-looking sonar, regridded to 100 km EASE grids.

Time Range

1986 to 2014, with varying coverage per source.

Freshness

Last updated in 2014; no stated update frequency.

Geography

Polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic), coverage defined by the 100 km EASE grids.