Image of the Arctic Sea ice - September 10, 2016
An image of the Arctic sea ice on September 6, 2016 with the 30-year average minimum extent indicated by a yellow line.
Satellite-based passive microwave images of the sea ice have provided a reliable tool for continuously monitoring changes in the Arctic ice since 1979. Every summer the Arctic ice cap melts down to what scientists call its "minimum" before colder weather begins to cause ice cover to increase. The first six months of 2016 have been the warmest first half of any year in our recorded history of surface temperature (which goes back to 1880). Data shows that the Arctic temperature increases are much bigger, relatively, than the rest of the globe.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) provides many water-related products derived from data acquired by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) instrument aboard the Global Change Observation Mission 1st-Water "SHIZUKU" (GCOM-W1) satellite. Two JAXA datasets used in this animation are the 10-km daily sea ice concentration and the 10 km daily 89 GHz Brightness Temperature.
This image shows the Arctic sea ice on September 10, 2016 when the ice reached its minimum extent. The opacity of the sea ice is derived from the sea ice concentration where it is greater than 15%. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived the AMSR2 89 GHz brightness temperature.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Visualizer
- Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Scientists
- Josefino Comiso (NASA/GSFC)
- Walt Meier (NASA/GSFC)
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Sr. data analyst
- Robert Gersten (Wyle Information Systems)
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Technical support
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
- Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
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Project support
- Joycelyn Thomson Jones (NASA/GSFC)
- Leann Johnson (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Eric Sokolowsky (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, May 30, 2017.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:47 PM EDT.
Datasets used in this visualization
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BMNG (Blue Marble: Next Generation) [Terra and Aqua: MODIS]
ID: 508Credit: The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).
This dataset can be found at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/
See all pages that use this dataset -
10 km Daily Sea Ice Concentration [SHIZUKU (GCOM-W1): AMSR2]
ID: 795Credit: AMSR2 data courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
See all pages that use this dataset -
10 km Daily 89 GHz Brightness Temperature [SHIZUKU (GCOM-W1): AMSR2]
ID: 796Credit: AMSR2 data courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.