Snowice Dataset

Introduction

****** 1 Degree Product updated on 9-8-2015 to correct Ice Fill flag value of 0 being reported as undefined ******
****** Product updated on 12-26-2014 to resolve grid inconsistency issues ******

SNOWICE is a time varying data product reporting the variations of snow and sea ice cover over the whole globe. The product reports daily snow cover as an area fraction and sea ice concentration, both taken to represent the absolute area fraction within a map grid cell. In addition, the fraction of the map grid cell covered by permanent glaciers on land and permanent ice shelf on water are reported from SRFTYP dataset. The land fraction is reported from TOPO dataset. The sum of the (fixed) glacier fraction and snow cover fraction is (less than equal) land fraction. Likewise the sum of permanent ice shelf fraction and sea ice fraction is (less than equal)(1 − land fraction). Also reported are a snow and sea ice margin zone: for map grid cells with land but no snow or permanent glacier, the distance to the nearest snow-glacier-covered land up to 115 km is reported and for map grid cells with water but no sea ice or permanent ice shelf, the distance to the nearest sea ice or ice shelf up to 115 km is reported. Source and quality flags are also provided. The period covered is 1979 through 2013.

To download documentation for the dataset click here.

To download the dataset in 0.25 degree equal area grid NETCDF 4 format click here.
To download the dataset in 1.00 degree equal area grid NETCDF 4 format click here.
For general information on reading the netcdf ISCCP products click here.


Quantities reported
  • Land area fraction
  • Snow cover fraction
  • Permanent Glacier cover fraction
  • Distance to snow-glacier for open land
  • Sea Ice cover fraction
  • Permanent Ice Shelf cover fraction
  • Distance to sea ice-shelf for open water
  • Sea Ice Status Flags