Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2020/01
The Amundsen Sea Low (ASL) is a climatological low pressure center located over the extreme southern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of West Antarctica. Atmospheric variability in this region is larger than anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere, and exhibits significant correlations with both...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii | csv
Timestep: Monthly,Seasonal,Annual
Domain: Antarctic, SH - Southern Hemisphere, Southern Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Hosking, Scott
Years of Record: 1905/01 to 2013/12
This dataset consists of seasonally resolved timeseries of surface pressure at 18 Antarctic research stations, spanning 1905-2013. Routine meteorological observations began at most of these stations only around 1960, leaving a very short instrumental record on which to assess Antarctic...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii | Spreadsheet
Timestep: Seasonal
Domain: Antarctic 
Years of Record: 1957/01 to 2015/09
The station-based index of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is based on the zonal pressure difference between the latitudes of 40S and 65S. As such, the SAM index measures a "see-saw" of atmospheric mass between the middle and high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Positive values of...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Domain: Antarctic, SH - Southern Hemisphere, Southern Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Marshall, Gareth
Years of Record: 1869/12 to 2020/08
The merged Hadley-OI sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration (SIC) data sets were specifically developed as surface forcing data sets for AMIP style uncoupled simulations of the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM). The Hadley Centre's SST/SIC version 1.1 (HADISST1), which is derived...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global, Antarctic, Arctic, NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere 
Years of Record: 1998/01 to 2010/12
This data set summarizes the original observation-based mean fluxes of Water and Energy Budget (WEB) components during the first decade of the 21st century (specifically: 1998-2010), for each continent and ocean basin. These data are summarized on both monthly and annual scales, as well as...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | Spreadsheet
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly,Annual
Domain: Africa, Antarctic, Asia, Atlantic Ocean, Australia, Europe, Indian Ocean, Maritime Continent, North America, South America 
Years of Record: 1978/10 to 2021/07
The NSIDC Sea Ice Index is a suite of easy-to-use sea ice analyses to track changes in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. The product is produced and supported by the NOAA at NSIDC group and consists of browse imagery and data text files (CSV or Excel format). The input data is from two sources...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii | csv | GeoTIFF | Image | shapefile
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic
See Expert Guidance by Meier, Walter
Years of Record: 2002/06 to 2011/10
The sea ice data derived from AMSR-E using the ARTIST sea ice (ASI) algorithm offer a factor of 4 finer spatial resolution than most sea ice data sets from passive microwave satellite instruments. ASI is based on the difference of vertically and horizontally polarized brightness temperatures at 89...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | HDF | GeoTIFF
Timestep: Daily
Domain: NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere, Antarctic, Arctic Years of Record: 1869/12 to 2021/05
Spanning 1871-present at monthly timesteps, HadISST provides the longest gridded sea ice data available for both the Arctic and Antarctic. It is a 1° x 1° spatially infilled data set that is It is intended as a consistent analyses for input into SST analyses or as boundary conditions for models....
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic, NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere Years of Record: 1978/10 to 2014/12
Bootstrap sea ice refers to a well-known algorithm used to estimate sea ice concentration from passive microwave brightness temperatures. It can be applied to data from many satellite instruments, such as SMMR, SSMI, and AMSR-E. This page discusses the algorithm itself and the long-term data set ("...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic, NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere Years of Record: 1978/10 to 2014/12
NASA Team sea ice refers to a well-known algorithm used to estimate sea ice concentration from passive microwave brightness temperatures. This page discusses the algorithm itself and the long-term data set ("NSIDC 0051") produced by scientists at NASA Goddard and distributed by NSIDC. The NASA Team...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic, NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere Years of Record: 2002/06 to 2011/10
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...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: HDF-EOS
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic Years of Record: 1992/01 to 2008/04
The NASA Team 2 (NT2) / SSMI data set of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration is available at daily timesteps and 25km spatial resolution for 1992-2008. NT2, an extension of the original NASA Team algorithm, uses SSMI 85GHz channels to help resolve ambiguity between low ice concentrations and...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic Years of Record: 1981/10 to 2021/07
The NOAA Optimal Interpolation (OI) v2 sea ice data set contains gridded, weekly or monthly resolution sea ice concentration estimates for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. It is intended as a consistent analyses for input into SST analyses (and is the basis for calculating SSTs in sea...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic, NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere Years of Record: 1978/10 to 2009/10
The Eumetsat Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Applications Facility provides a "reprocessed" data set of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration for 1978-2009. Source data are the SMMR and SSM/I passive microwave brightness temperatures. Three algorithms are utilized: the Technical University of...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Daily
Domain: NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere, Antarctic, Arctic Sea ice concentration is both an indicator and driver of high-latitude climate change with strong societal and ecological importance. It is a key boundary condition for atmospheric models (including those used in atmospheric reanalyses) and a benchmark for coupled climate models. As such, numerous...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic Years of Record: 1978/10 to 2020/12
The NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record (CDR) of sea ice concentration is available at 25 x 25 km spatial resolution in daily or monthly timesteps for 1987-2014. It provides a consistent interpretation of sea ice for the satellite record, with the intent of being suitable for studies of climate...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic, NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere
See Expert Guidance by Meier, Walter
While satellite observations of sea ice extent and concentration are available from 1979, long-term high quality (daily and high spatial resolution) observations of sea ice thickness remain limited as a result of few satellite and in situ observations. Reconstructions using numerous observational...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly,Irregular
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic
See Expert Guidance by Labe, Zachary
Years of Record: 1979/12 to 2016/12
The dynamics of the Southern Hemisphere westerly jet are described in terms of two indices, jet strength and jet latitude. Here, these indices are defined using the ERA-Interim reanalysis, although other datasets, including climate models, could be used. Although closely linked with the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Seasonal,Annual
Domain: Antarctic, SH - Southern Hemisphere, Southern Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Bracegirdle, Thomas J.
Years of Record: 2005/01 to 2010/12
The Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE) is a model-generated best fit to Southern Ocean observations. As such, it provides a quantitatively useful climatology of the mean-state of the Southern Ocean. Technically, SOSE is a solution to the MITgcm. SOSE is a gridded dataset at 1/6...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly,Annual
Domain: Antarctic, SH - Southern Hemisphere, Southern Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Mazloff, Matthew
