The Data Access Portal has information in 3 columns. An outline of the content in these columns is provided above. When first entering the search interface, all potential datasets are listed. Datasets are indicated in the map and results tabulation elements which are located in the middle column. The order of results can be modified using the "Sort by" option in the left column. On top of this column is normally relevant guidance information to user presented as collapsible elements.
If the user want to refine the search, this can be done by constraining the bounding box search. This is done in the map - the listing of datasets is automatically updated. Date constraints can be added in the left column. For these to take effect, the user has to push the button marked search. In the left column it is also possible to specific text elements to search for in the datasets. Again pushing the button marked "Search" is necessary for these to take action. Complex search patterns can be constructed by changing the operators used in the text field and prefixing words with '+' and '-' to indicate whether they have to be present or should not be present in the results.
Other elements indicated in the left and right columns are facet searches, i.e. these are keywords that are found in the datasets and all datasets that contain these specific keywords in the appropriate metadata elements are listed together. Further refinement can be done using full text, date or bounding box constraints. Individuals, organisations and data centres involved in generating or curating the datasets are listed in the facets in the right column.
Citation of data and service
If you use data retrieved through this portal, please acknowledge the efforts of the data portal and the data centres contributing.
The information required to properly cite a dataset is normally provided in the discovery metadata the datasets.
author,
title,
year of publication,
publisher (for data this is often the archive where it is housed),
edition or version,
access information (a URL or persistent identifier, e.g. DOI if provided)
The Environmental Working Group Joint U.S.-Russian Arctic Sea Ice Atlas is part of the <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/ewg">NOAA@NSIDC Environmental Working Group (EWG) Atlases</a> data collection.
The EWG Joint U.S.-Russian Arctic Sea Ice Atlas was developed by U.S. and Russian partners in the late 1990s. It is based on observations collected over the period 1950 through 1994 from satellite data, ice stations, icebreakers, and airborne ice surveys. Additionally, U.S. submarines operating in the Arctic over the period from 1977 through 1993 collected data used for a previously classified ice climatology. The Atlas contains four main sections: an introduction to Arctic sea ice, a section that describes primary sea ice data sets and analysis methods, a section with a graphical atlas containing two-dimensional color-coded ice charts and graphical products, and an Arctic sea ice data section. Note: The Russian chart component of this product has been replaced and updated by <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/g02176/versions/1">Sea Ice Charts of the Russian Arctic in Gridded Format, 1933-2006</a> and the U.S chart component by <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/g02172/versions/1">National Ice Center Arctic Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies in Gridded Format, 1972-2007</a> and <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/g10033/versions/1">U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Concentration and Climatologies in Gridded Format</a>.
NOTE: The data product titled <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/G10033">U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Concentration and Climatologies in Gridded Format</a> supersedes this product. It begins with charts from January 2003 and is updated weekly.
The U.S. National Ice Center (NIC) is an inter-agency sea ice analysis and forecasting center comprised of the Department of Commerce/NOAA, the Department of Defense/U.S. Navy, and the Department of Homeland Security/U.S. Coast Guard components. Since 1972, NIC has produced Arctic and Antarctic sea ice charts. This data set is comprised of Arctic sea ice concentration climatology derived from the NIC weekly or biweekly operational ice-chart time series. The charts used in the climatology are from 1972 through 2007; and the monthly climatology products are median, maximum, minimum, first quartile, and third quartile concentrations, as well as frequency of occurrence of ice at any concentration for the entire period of record as well as for 10-year and 5-year periods. These climatologies and the charts from which they are derived are provided in the 25-km Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid (EASE-Grid) binary (.bin) format. The climatologies are also available in ArcGIS geodatabases (.mdb), and GIF format browse files (.gif) are also provided.
To view the browse files and compare climatological periods visually, choose Search Database under the Download Data tab.