Dataset
ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Northern hemisphere sea ice thickness from Envisat on a monthly grid (L3C), v4.0
Update Frequency: Not Planned
Status: Pending
Online Status: ONLINE
Publication State: Published
Publication Date: 2025-11-20
Download Stats: last 12 months
Dataset Size: 69 Files | 182MB
Abstract
This dataset provides a Climate Data Record of Sea Ice Thickness for the northern hemisphere polar region, derived from the RA-2 (Radar Altimeter -2) instrument on the Envisat satellite. This product was generated in the context of the ESA Climate Change Initiative Programme (ESA CCI) by the Sea Ice CCI (Sea_Ice_cci) project.
It provides monthly sea ice thickness data for the winter months of October to March annually on the satellite measurement grid (Level 3C) at the full sensor resolution for the period October 2002 to March 2012.
Citable as: Hendricks, S.; Paul, S.; Rinne, E. (2025): ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Northern hemisphere sea ice thickness from Envisat on a monthly grid (L3C), v4.0. NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, date of citation. https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/a0120f31bcd94f8da74ddfebe658773d
Abbreviation: Not defined
Keywords: Sea Ice, ESA, CCI, Arctic
Details
| Previous Info: |
No news update for this record
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| Previously used record identifiers: |
No related previous identifiers.
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| Access rules: |
Public data: access to these data is available to both registered and non-registered users.
Use of these data is covered by the following licence(s): https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/esacci_seaice_terms_and_conditions.pdf When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record. |
| Data lineage: |
Data were processed by the ESA CCI Sea Ice project team and were supplied to CEDA in the context of the ESA CCI Open Data Portal Project |
| Data Quality: |
See the Sea Ice CCI documentation for information on data quality.
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| File Format: |
netcdf
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Related Documents
| ESA Climate Change Initiative website |
| ESA CCI Sea Ice project website |
Process overview
This dataset was generated by a combination of instruments deployed on platforms
and computations as detailed below.
Instrument/Platform pairings
| Radar Altimeter 2 (RA-2) | Deployed on: Envisat |
Computation Element: 1
| Title | Computation for ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Retrieval of sea-ice thickness from radar altimetry data |
| Abstract | The method used to extract sea-ice thickness from radar altimetry data is based on the pioneering work of Peacock and Laxon, 2004; Laxon et al., 2003 for the ERS-2 mission. The method involves separating the radar echoes returning from the ice floes from those returning from the sea surface in the leads between the floes. This step of a surface-type classification is crucial and allows for a separate determination of the ice floe and sea-surface heights. The freeboard that is the elevation of the ice upper side (or ice/snow interface) above the sea level can then be computed by deducting the interpolated sea-surface height at the floe location from the height of the floe. Sea-ice thickness can then be calculated from the sea-ice freeboard with the additional information of the snow load. |
| Input Description | None |
| Output Description | None |
| Software Reference | None |
| Output Description | None |
- var_id: Lambert_Azimuthal_Grid
- units: 1
- var_id: quality_flag
- standard_name: quality_flag
- long_name: Sea Ice Thickness Quality Flag
- units: 1
- var_id: status_flag
- standard_name: status_flag
- long_name: Sea Ice Thickness Status Flag
- var_id: time_bnds
- long_name: Time Bounds
- units: m
- var_id: radar_freeboard
- long_name: radar freeboard
- units: 1
- var_id: region_code
- long_name: region code
- units: percent
- standard_name: sea_ice_area_fraction
- var_id: sea_ice_concentration
- long_name: sea ice concentration
- units: m
- standard_name: sea_ice_freeboard
- long_name: sea ice freeboard
- var_id: sea_ice_freeboard
- units: m
- standard_name: sea_ice_thickness
- var_id: sea_ice_thickness
- long_name: sea ice thickness
- units: m
- standard_name: surface_snow_thickness_where_sea_ice
- var_id: snow_depth
- long_name: thickness of the snow layer
- units: m
- var_id: snow_depth_uncertainty
- standard_name: surface_snow_thickness_where_sea_ice standard_error
- long_name: uncertainty associated to the thickness of the snow layer
- units: m
- var_id: radar_freeboard_uncertainty
- long_name: uncertainty associated with radar freeboard
- units: m
- var_id: sea_ice_thickness_uncertainty
- standard_name: sea_ice_thickness standard_error
- long_name: uncertainty associated with sea ice thickness
- units: km
- standard_name: projection_x_coordinate
- long_name: x coordinate of projection (eastings)
- var_id: xc
- units: km
- standard_name: projection_y_coordinate
- var_id: yc
- long_name: y coordinate of projection (northing)
Co-ordinate Variables
- standard_name: time
- var_id: time
- long_name: Time
- units: seconds
- units: degrees_north
- standard_name: latitude
- var_id: lat
- long_name: latitude coordinate
- units: degrees_east
- standard_name: longitude
- var_id: lon
- long_name: longitude coordinate
Coverage
Temporal Range
Start time:
2002-10-01T00:00:00
End time:
2012-03-31T23:59:59
Geographic Extent
90.0000° |
||
-180.0000° |
180.0000° |
|
16.0000° |
Related parties