Sea Ice Concentration data from NASA Goddard and NSIDC using AMSR-E and NASA TEAM2 (NT2) algorithm

The AMSR-E/NASA Team 2 (NT2) data set of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration is available at daily timesteps and 12.5 km (optionally 25km) spatial resolution for 2002-2011. NT2, an extension of the original NASA Team algorithm, uses AMSR-E 89GHz channels to help resolve ambiguity between low ice concentrations and areas with strong surface effects (due to snow layering and glazing). 89GHz channels introduce more weather contamination. NT2 implements a radiative transfer model to filter for weather that simulates brightness temperatures under several idealized polar atmospheres. The algorithm searches for the best fit between the observed and modeled brightness temperature ratios to pick the final concentration. Unlike ASI, NT2 uses the lower frequency channels as well as the high frequency channels. Sea ice from NT2 is more similar to Bootstrap sea ice than was the original NASA Team sea ice. Some differences are still apparent; NT2 usually shows slightly higher concentrations in the Antarctic and more sensitivity to thin ice. The NSIDC data set also includes estimates of snow depth on sea ice and of bootstrap sea ice retrievals.