Click on the region above for the most current color chart or click on the dropdown menu

++To improve the visual quality of our weekly analysis, our files are now produced in PDF Format. Please contact NIC Liaison if you have any questions.++

Antarctic sea ice analyses from the last week of October 1997 until June 19, 1998, based on the thirty-two regions, can be viewed in the NIC Past Antarctic Analyses folder.  (All ARC coverages and metadata can be accessed via the current page).

Analyses of current ice conditions are produced bimonthly for the twelve regions.  All NIC regional sea ice analyses are derived from the near real-time integration of remotely sensed and in-situ oceanographic/ meteorological observations. These analyses are produced following standard analysis procedures, which optimize the use of data that widely vary in availability, scale, and resolution. These operational data sources can be grouped into the following categories: satellite derived data, aerial ice reconnaissance, ship/shore station observations, drifting buoy reports, meteorological guidance products, ice prediction model output, climatology and sea ice information obtained from international partners such as foreign ice services. Documentation recording the percentages of each data type used in each analysis can be found in a weekly metadata narrative. NIC analysis and forecast guidance products are produced on global, regional, and tactical scales. These products are disseminated through a variety of communications paths in both digital and analog formats.

Digital products include:

1. Global sea ice edge products consisting of latitude/longitude pairs.
2. Sea ice analysis charts in Graphics Interface Format (*.gif) which can be viewed with almost any web browser and/or graphics viewer .
3. Geographic Information System (GIS) ARC/INFO coverages.