Arctic Sea Ice Climatology Masks for Passive Microwave Data Filtering

Twelve monthly valid ice masks define possible Arctic sea ice locations to filter spurious signals from passive microwave satellite data. The masks are derived from historical National Ice Center monthly sea ice climatologies and are provided on a 304 x 448 grid in netCDF-CF 1.6 format. This dataset is produced by the NSIDC and is available via FTP.

Use Cases

• Filtering residual weather effects from passive microwave sea ice concentration data using the monthly mask grids.
• Removing land spillover contamination in satellite-derived ice extent measurements.
• Providing a historical climatological baseline of possible ice locations for model validation.
• Supporting the creation of cleaner, more accurate sea ice time series from satellite records.

Strengths

• Contains 12 distinct masks providing monthly climatological context for ice presence.
• Data is provided on a standardized 304 x 448 polar stereographic grid.
• Files are netCDF-CF 1.6 compliant with associated metadata for interoperability.

Limitations

• The exact temporal coverage of the source climatologies is not specified.
• Platforms conflict on the last updated date (2007-12-31 vs. 2026-03-12).
• No column or variable names are provided in the source metadata.

Provenance

Source

National Ice Center Arctic Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies data set.

Collection Method

Derived from historical monthly sea ice climatologies.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:37:16.247992

Geography

Arctic region, on a polar stereographic grid.