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Description

This data set (AE_SI12) reports average daily, 12.5 km resolution, horizontally and vertically polarized brightness temperatures (Tb) at four frequencies—18.7 GHz, 23.8 GHz, 36.5 GHz and 89.0 GHz. It also reports: daily sea ice concentrations derived with the Enhanced NASA Team (NT2) algorithm; daily sea ice concentration differences between NT2 and the legacy AMSR Basic Bootstrap Algorithm (BBA); and daily snow depths over sea ice. Data are provided on Northern and Southern Hemisphere, polar stereographic grids.

These data are derived from observations acquired by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E).

Version Description

Changes for this version include: * Uses Version 4 of the AMSR-E/Aqua L2A Global Swath Spatially-Resampled Brightness Temperatures as input; * NH water filter parameters adjusted to better characterize open water cluster during cold months. This change eliminates ~60% of NH false ice identifications in open ocean during Oct. to May. * Removed sea ice concentration difference flagging scheme, which in previous versions indicated explicitly whether BBA and/or NT2 values were missing. * Data file format changed to HDF-EOS5.

Product Summary

Platforms
Aqua
Instruments
AMSR-E
Spatial Extent

N: 90 S: 30.98 E: 180 W: -180

,

N: -39.23 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180

Spatial Resolution
12.5 Kilometers x 12.5 Kilometers
Spatial Reference System(s)
Multiple EPSG codes (see User Guide)
Location
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE ,
POLAR ,
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2002-06-01 to 2011-10-04
Temporal Resolution
1 Day
Concept ID
C3628319333-NSIDC_CPRD
Data State
COMPLETE
Number of Files/Granules
3381
Processing Level
3
Published
Science Keywords
Brightness Temperature ,
Sea Ice Concentration ,
Snow Depth

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Markus, T., Comiso, J. C., Boisvert, L., & Meier, W. N. (2025). AMSR-E/Aqua Daily L3 12.5 km Brightness Temperature, Sea Ice Concentration, & Snow Depth Polar Grids, Version 4 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/J00N1DZZHGW9 Date Accessed: 2026-10-02

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Publications Citing This Dataset

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Title Authors Year Referenced Datasets
Toward a Multidecadal SAR Analysis of Sea Ice Types in the Atlantic Sector of the Arctic Ocean
  • Guo, Wenkai, Landy, Jack, Lohse, Johannes, Doulgeris, Anthony P., Johansson, Malin, Eltoft, Torbjrn, Itkin, Polona, Xu, Shiming
Quantifying the influence of snow over sea ice morphology on L-band passive microwave satellite observations in the Southern Ocean
  • Zhou, Lu, Stroeve, Julienne, Nandan, Vishnu, Willatt, Rosemary, Xu, Shiming, Zhu, Weixin, Kacimi, Sahra, Arndt, Stefanie, Yang, Zifan
Sensitivity of NEMO4.0-SI3 model parameters on sea ice budgets in the Southern Ocean
  • Nie, Yafei, Li, Chengkun, Vancoppenolle, Martin, Cheng, Bin, Boeira Dias, Fabio, Lv, Xianqing, Uotila, Petteri
Retrieval of Snow Depth on Arctic Sea Ice from the FY3B/MWRI
  • Li, Lele, Chen, Haihua, Guan, Lei
The ice factory of Hudson Bay: Spatiotemporal variability of the Kivalliq Polynya
  • Bruneau, Jennifer, Babb, David, Chan, Wayne, Kirillov, Sergei, Ehn, Jens, Hanesiak, John, Barber, David G.
The Impact of the Amundsen Sea Freshwater Balance on Ocean Melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
  • Bett, David T., Holland, Paul R., Naveira Garabato, Alberto C., Jenkins, Adrian, Dutrieux, Pierre, Kimura, Satoshi, Fleming, Andrew
Study on the Retrieval of Sea Ice Concentration from Fy3b/Mwri in the Arctic
  • Li, Lele, Chen, Haihua, Wang, Xiaoyu, Guan, Lei
Retrieval of snow depth on sea ice in the arctic from FY3B/MWRI
  • Li, Lele, Chen, Haihua, Guan, Lei
Validation of Suomi-NPP VIIRS sea ice concentration with very high-resolution satellite and airborne camera imagery
  • Baldwin, Daniel, Tschudi, Mark, Pacifici, Fabio, Liu, Yinghui
Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPRRapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack
  • Pfaffhuber, Andreas A., Lieser, Jan L., Haas, Christian
Sea-ice production in the northern Japan Sea
  • Nihashi, Sohey, Ohshima, Kay I., Saitoh, Sei-Ichi
Study on the retrieval of snow depth from FY3B/MWRI in the atctic
  • Li, Lele, Chen, Haihua, Guan, Lei
The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations
  • Kern, Stefan, Rosel, Anja, Pedersen, Leif Toudal, Ivanova, Natalia, Saldo, Roberto, Tonboe, Rasmus Tage
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