Snowmelt onset on Antarctic Sea Ice from India’s Oceansat-series scatterometers

The data set is the surface melt onset dates of the Antarctic sea ice determined using the Oceansat series of scatterometers launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The data period is from 2009 to 2019. However, there are no input data available from 2015 to 2016. The principle of temporal reduction in backscatter due to summer melting is used in preparing this data set. Two very important mitigating steps for reducing erroneous effects due to ice-surface flooding and sea ice drift were also incorporated.The data sets are flat binary data of 1940 by 1940 pixels. However, associated header files (*.hdr) are also provided so that they can be opened easily on any earth data processing software (e.g., QGIS). A 7-pixel median filtered melt onset imageries are also provided. These data sets can be used to study spatio-temporal variability in melt onset.