MODIS Terra Near Real-Time Sea Ice Extent and Temperature

MODIS/Terra Sea Ice Extent 5-Min L2 Swath 1km NRT provides swath-level data on sea ice presence and surface temperature. The dataset includes fields such as sea ice by reflectance, ice surface temperature (IST), combined sea ice, and geolocation coordinates. It is produced by the LANCEMODIS organization using a modified Normalized Difference Snow Index algorithm.

Use Cases

• Monitoring daily sea ice extent changes using the 'combined sea ice' field.
• Analyzing ice surface temperature (IST) trends for climate model validation.
• Distinguishing sea ice from open ocean using the reflectance-based 'sea ice by reflectance' field.
• Assessing data quality for specific pixels using the 'sea ice by reflectance pixel QA' and 'IST pixel QA' fields.
• Mapping geolocated ice observations by combining the 'latitudes' and 'longitudes' fields with other ice data.

Strengths

• Provides near real-time (NRT) data for timely analysis.
• Includes pixel-level quality assurance (QA) fields for data reliability checks.
• Uses a specific algorithm (Normalized Difference Snow Index modified for sea ice) for feature discrimination.

Limitations

• Geolocation fields ('latitudes', 'longitudes') are at a lower 5 km resolution compared to the 1 km resolution of other data fields.
• Specific row count, temporal coverage, and data size are unknown.
• The dataset format (HDF-EOS) may require specialized tools for access and processing.

Provenance

Source

LANCEMODIS organization via NASA Earthdata.

Collection Method

Remote sensing data from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, processed using a modified NDSI algorithm.

Freshness

Near real-time.

Geography

Global, with focus on polar sea ice regions.