Daily Polar Sea Ice: Two Year Planetary History | NASA Earth Observatory

Daily Polar Sea Ice: Two Year Planetary History | NASA Earth Observatory

This visualization shows the daily Arctic and Antarctic sea ice and seasonal land cover change over a two-year history from the present with a single frame rendered for each day. 

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) provides many water-related products derived from data acquired by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) instrument aboard the Global Change Observation Mission 1st-Water "SHIZUKU" (GCOM-W1) satellite. Two JAXA datasets are used in this animation: the 10-km daily sea ice concentration and the 10 km daily 89 GHz Brightness Temperature.

In this visualization sea ice changes from day to day, with the amount of ice shown being determined by the AMSR2 sea ice concentration data. A running 3-day minimum is used with a minimum threshhold concentration of 15%. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running minimum of the AMSR2 89 GHz brightness temperature. Over the terrain, monthly data from the seasonal Blue Marble Next Generation fades slowly from month to month.

The numerical portion of the frame filename begins with the four-digit year, followed by the three-digit day of the year for that frame.

Video Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

Visualizations: Trent L. Schindler

Release Date: July 1, 2024

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