ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Drift-aware sea-ice thickness for the Northern Hemisphere from Envisat, v1.0

This dataset provides daily drift-aware sea ice freeboard and thickness maps, using satellite altimetry data from Envisat, covering the entire Arctic sea ice domain. Daily files are provided during boreal winter seasons (October to April).

Neglecting sea ice drift when generating monthly sea ice thickness maps from satellite altimetry will cause blurring of the spatial distribution of ice thickness. This dataset synergizes sea ice freeboard and thickness information from satellite altimetry with sea ice drift estimates from passive microwave satellite sensors. Individual parcels of satellite altimeter measurements are advected daily over a time span of one month to obtain drift-aware sea ice freeboard and thickness maps. Because of the drift correction, this allows the determination of sea ice that was overflown by the satellite multiple times, and therefore the estimation of growth rates and changes in the sea ice thickness distribution due to deformation and thermodynamic ice growth between satellite overflights. With the estimation of sea ice growth, measurements can be corrected for the time offset between the acquisition day and the target day, the day to which all measurements within a month are projected.

These data have been produced as part of the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme, as part of the ESA CCI Sea Ice project.