Dataset
ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Southern hemisphere sea ice thickness from Sentinel-3B 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: 66 Files | 47MB
Abstract
This dataset provides a Climate Data Record of Sea Ice Thickness for the Southern Hemisphere polar region, derived from the SRAL (Synthetic aperture Radar Altimeter) instrument on the Sentinel -3B 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 on the satellite measurement grid (Level 3C) at the full sensor resolution for the period November 2018 to April 2024.
Citable as: Hendricks, S.; Paul, S.; Rinne, E. (2025): ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Southern hemisphere sea ice thickness from Sentinel-3B on a monthly grid (L3C), v4.0. NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, date of citation. https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/db0aee3dbdc54ab0981bca2e632f3be3
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
| Sentinel 3 Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (SRAL) | Deployed on: Sentinel 3B |
Computation Element: 1
| Title | Computation for ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Retrieval of sea-ice thickness from Sentinel-3B 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:
2018-11-01T00:00:00
End time:
2024-04-30T23:59:59
Geographic Extent
-50.0000° |
||
-180.0000° |
180.0000° |
|
-81.4500° |
Related parties