North Pole Daily Snow and Sea Ice Temperature

  • Credit

    NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Daily Snow and Sea Ice Temperature over the North Pole

This animation shows the global advance and retreat of daily snow cover along with daily sea ice surface temperature over the Northern Hemisphere from September 2002 through May 2003. The snow cover was measured by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, while the sea ice surface temperature was measured by the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite. Since these instruments cannot take measurements through clouds, in cloud-covered regions or areas with suspect data quality, the prior day's value is retained until a valid data reading is obtained. This visualization designates an area as covered by snow when the instrument takes a valid measurement showing greater than ~50% snow coverage in that area. This area is assumed to be snow covered until the instrument takes a valid measurement showing less than 40% snow coverage in that same area. A color bar indicates the sea ice surface temperature values. The satellite instruments are unable to collect data through darkness. The region in polar darkness is shown as a grey cap over the pole that grows and shrinks seasonally. A date slider indicates the progression of time. SeaWiFS Land Reflectance shows the seasonal changes in landcover.

This animation shows the daily advance and retreat of snow cover, and sea ice surface temperature over the North Pole during the winter of 2002-2003.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Terra/MODIS

  • Animation ID

    2982

  • Video ID

    none

  • Start Timecode

    00:00:00:00

  • End Timecode

    00:00:00:00

  • Animator

    Cindy Starr, Greg Shirah, Marte Newcombe

  • Studio

    SVS

  • Visualization Date

    2004/09/10

  • Scientist

    Dorothy Hall (NASA/GSFC)

  • Datasets

    Terra/MODIS Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG (MOD10C1), Aqua/MODIS Sea Ice Extent and IST Daily L3 Global 4km EASE-Grid Day (MYD29E1D), SeaWiFS Monthly Land Reflectance

  • Keywords

    Snow Cover, Sea Ice Temperature, HDTV

  • DLESE Subject

    Cryology

  • Data Date

    2002/07/01 - 2003/05/31, 2000/05/01 - 2000/10/31

  • Animation Type

    Regular

  • Other Credits

    George Riggs (NASA/SSAI)