Sea Ice Trends and Climatologies from SMMR and SSM/I-SSMIS, Version 2

NSIDC provides this data set to aid in the investigations of the variability and trends of sea ice cover. Ice cover in these data are indicated by sea ice concentration: the percentage of the ocean surface covered by ice. The ice-covered area indicates how much ice is present; it is the total area of a pixel multiplied by the ice concentration in that pixel. Ice persistence is the percentage of months over the data set time period that ice existed at a location. The ice-extent indicates whether ice is present; here, ice is considered to exist in a pixel if the sea ice concentration exceeds 15 percent.This data set provides users with data about total ice-covered areas, sea ice extent, ice persistence, and monthly climatologies of sea ice concentrations.