AMSR2 Daily Sea Ice and Brightness Temperature at 12.5 km Resolution

Microwave brightness temperature and sea ice concentration data are provided by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) instrument on the GCOM-W1 satellite. The Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) generates this Level-3 product within 3 hours of observation, mapping daily ascending, descending, and average values to a 12.5 km polar stereographic grid. This dataset is a near real-time version of the standard science quality product available from NSIDC.

Use Cases

• Monitoring daily Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration changes using the gridded sea ice concentration fields.
• Analyzing microwave brightness temperature at 89.0 GHz for research on surface properties and atmospheric conditions over ice and ocean.
• Studying the diurnal cycle or orbital pass effects by comparing the separate daily ascending and descending average data layers.
• Assimilating near real-time sea ice data into numerical weather prediction or seasonal forecast models.
• Validating and calibrating sea ice algorithms by comparing this near real-time product with the final science quality version.

Strengths

• Data is generated with low latency, available within 3 hours of the last observation in the file.
• Uses the AMSR-U2 product generation algorithm, consistent with the standard science quality data product.
• Provides three distinct daily data layers: ascending averages, descending averages, and daily averages.
• Offers a consistent 12.5 km spatial resolution on a polar stereographic grid for both hemispheres.

Limitations

• This is a near real-time product; for finalized, science-quality data, users must access the standard product from NSIDC.
• Specific column names, row counts, and total dataset size are not provided in the available metadata.
• Conflicting license information is present: one source specifies 'other-license-specified' while another lists 'None'.

Provenance

Source

Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Level-1R data, processed by the Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) at the AMSR SIPS.

Collection Method

Passive microwave measurements from the AMSR2 instrument on the GCOM-W1 satellite, processed using the AMSR-U2 algorithm with modifications for near real-time generation.

Time Range

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Freshness

2026-03-12 23:08:08.829781

Geography

Global, with data mapped to polar stereographic grids for the Arctic and Antarctic.