AMSR Data Catalog: Cryosphere #8211; AMSR web at JAXA Earth Observation Research Center (EORC)

Data Catalog
Cryosphere
Sea Ice Concentration

Sea Ice Concentration
(Standard Product)

Sea Ice Concentration (SIC) product stores percentage of sea ice coverage within target ocean area. Coverage of the product is over the ocean around Arctic and Antarctic Sea, and unit is [%]. There is no sea ice within pixel area when sea ice concentration is 0%, and all pixel area is covered by sea ice when it shows 100%. We can learn distribution of sea ice immediately using this product, and it become more and more important because of recent decrease of Arctic sea ice cover.

Product Overview

Product Name		Sea Ice Concentration DOI
Product Type		Standard Product
Processing Level		L2 (Swath data ^*2) and L3 (Grid data: Polar stereo NH/SH)
Product ID		SIC
Spec.^*1	Area	Polar region over ocean
	Spatial Resolution	approx. 15 km
	Accuracy Requirement	±10 %^*3
	Range	0 〜 100 %
Latest Version		AMSR2: ver. 3.0 2017-03-01 release AMSR-E: ver.8 2019-07-05 release
Product Period		AMSR2: July 2012 〜 AMSR-E: July 2002 〜 October 2011
Data Download		Globe Portal System (G-Portal) * "G-Portal" is currently under maintenance. Data is being distributed through the alternative site below until March 31, 2025 (planned). https://repo.gportal.jaxa.jp/standard/GCOM-W/GCOM-W.AMSR2/
Data Format		HDF5 AMSR2 Higher Level Format 2.7MB
Stored Data		Sea Ice Concentration [%]
Data Quality Flag		L2 SIC Quality Flag 250KB
Algorithm Version		v3.0 (Algorithm Description, 3.9MB PDF page 58 )
Validation Result		AMSR2 Products Update 1.5MB PDF page 9

The specifications are defined in the AMSR2 Mission Requirement. The required accuracy is the standard accuracy of standard product defined in the mission requirement.
Swath data is a format in which data for each footprint is stored in a two-dimensional array (observation points in scanning direction x number of scanning lines) in order of observation time.
Accuracy is expressed in absolute value of sea ice concentration (%).

Reference

Comiso, J., Sea ice microwave emissivities from satellite passive microwave and infrared observations, Journal of Geophysical Research, 1983, doi: 10.1029/JC088iC12p07686

Comiso, J.C., D. Cavalieri, C. Parkinson, and P. Gloersen,, Passive microwave algorithms for sea ice concentration: A comparison of two techniques, Remote Sensing of the Env., 1997, doi: 10.1016/S0034-4257(96)00220-9

Comiso, J. C. and F. Nishio, Trends in the sea ice cover using enhanced and compatible AMSR-E, SSM/I, and SMMR data, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2008, doi: 10.1029/2007JC004257

Revision History

July 5, 2019

AMSR-E Standard Product SIC ver. 8 release (HDF5 AMSR2 Higher Level Format)

Reprocessing by applying the AMSR2 algorithm

Extension of swath width from 196 points to 243 points

Compliant with AMSR2 HDF5 format

March 1, 2017

AMSR2 Standard Product SIC ver. 3.0

AMSR2 Products Update

1.5MB PDF page 9

Back Number

▸

March 26, 2015

AMSR2 Standard Product SIC ver. 2.0/2.1

AMSR2 L2 Product

12MB PDF page 31

July 9, 2013

AMSR2 Standard Product SIC ver. 1.0

AMSR2 L2 Product

3.7MB PDF page 19

September 29, 2011

AMSR-E Standard Product SIC ver. 7 release

March 12, 2007

AMSR-E Standard Product SIC ver. 5 release

March 15, 2006

AMSR-E Standard Product SIC ver. 4 release

March 1, 2005

AMSR-E Standard Product SIC ver. 3 release

September 19, 2003

AMSR-E Standard Product SIC ver. 1 release

Data Catalog
Cryosphere
High-resolution Sea Ice Concentration

High-resolution Sea Ice Concentration
(Research Product)

High-resolution Sea Ice Concentration (HSI) product stores percentage of sea ice coverage within target ocean area. Its unit is [%]. There is no sea ice within pixel area when sea ice concentration is 0%, and all pixel area is covered by sea ice when it shows 100%.

Feature of HSI

Sea Ice Concentration product as AMSR2 standard product detects the ratio of the sea ice area in each pixel with 15 km spatial resolution. By the limitation of the spatial resolution, it is sometimes difficult to monitor detail distribution of the sea ice. High-resolution sea ice concentration product detects the ratio of the sea ice area in each pixel with 5 km spatial resolution mainly using the 89GHz vertical and horizontal polarization brightness temperature based on the characteristics of the brightness temperature and its polarization difference.

SIC
March 16, 2016
Okhotsk Sea

Validation Method

In the validation we compared the sea ice concentration with detected by Aqua/MODIS visible reflectance data (Band1: 620-670nm, Band3: 459-479nm, band4: 545-565nm).

Product area open to the public

We focused on the only Arctic sea in the initially algorithm development phase, however in the publish phase, we expanded the target area to 43N including Okhotsk sea

Product Overview

Product Name		High-resolution Sea Ice Concentration
Product Type		Research Product
Processing Level		L2 (Swath data ^*2) and L3 (Grid data: Polar stereo NH)
Product ID		HSI
Spec.^*1	Area	Polar region over ocean ^*3
	Spatial Resolution	approx. 5 km
	Accuracy Requirement	±15 %^*4
	Range	0 〜 100 %
Latest Version		AMSR2: ver. 1.0 2021-04-21 release
Product Period		AMSR2: July 2012 〜
Data Download		GCOM-W Research Product Distribution Service
Data Format		HDF5 AMSR2 Higher Level Format 2.7MB
Stored Data		Sea Ice Concentration [%]
Data Quality Flag		L2 HSI Quality Flag 269KB
Algorithm Version		v1.0 (Liu, J., G. Heygster, and G. Spreen, 2018, )
Validation Result		AMSR2 Research Product Validation result of the High-resolution sea ice concentration 913KB

The specifications are defined in the AMSR2 Mission Requirement. The required accuracy is the goal accuracy of research product defined in the mission requirement.
Swath data is a format in which data for each footprint is stored in a two-dimensional array (observation points in scanning direction x number of scanning lines) in order of observation time.
HSI in the Southern Hemisphere is under development.
Accuracy is expressed in absolute value of sea ice concentration (%).

Reference

Spreen, G., L. Kaleschke, and G. Heygster, Sea ice remote sensing using AMSR-E 89-GHz channels, Journal of The Remote Sensing Society of Japan , 2008, doi: 10.11440/rssj.29.226

Heygster, G., H. Wiebe, G. Spreen, and L. Kaleschke, AMSR-E Geolocation and Validation of Sea Ice Concentrations Based on GHz Data, Geophysical Research Letters, 2009, doi: 10.1029/2005JC003384

Liu, J., G. Heygster, and G. Spreen, Atmospheric Correction of Sea Ice Concentration Retrieval for 89 GHz AMSR-E Observations, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 2018, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2018.2805193

Revision History

April 21, 2021

AMSR2 Research Product HSI ver. 1.0

AMSR2 Research Product Validation result of the High-resolution sea ice concentration

913KB

Data Catalog
Cryosphere
Detection of Thin Sea Ice

Detection of Thin Sea Ice
(Research Product)

Detection of Thin Sea Ice product (TSI) can detect the area where sea ice thickness is up to 30 cm in pixels whose SIC values are more than 90%.

Feature of TSI

Sea Ice Concentration product (SIC) in the standard product does not discriminate pixels of which most parts are occupied by sea ice. TSI is retrieved from the feature space of 18-GHz V and 18-GHz V - 18-GHz H brightness temperatures.

TSI was originally developed for the Sea of Okhotsk, but it was confirmed that its performance is good also in the Bering Sea and the Hudson Bay.

Hudson Bay
March 5, 2014

Validation Method

TSI product was verified using the thin sea ice area retrieved by the MODIS reflectance of Band 1 (620nm-670nm) and Band 2 (841nm-876nm).

Product Overview

Product Name		Detection of Thin Sea Ice
Product Type		Research Product
Processing Level		L2 (Swath data ^*2) and L3 (Grid data: Polar stereo NH)
Product ID		TSI
Spec.^*1	Area	Okhotsk Sea, Bering Sea, Hudson Bay
	Spatial Resolution	approx. 15 km
	Accuracy Requirement	80 %^*3
	Range	0:Sea Ice, 1: Thin Sea Ice
Latest Version		AMSR2: ver. 1.1 2023-08-01 release
Product Period		AMSR2: July 2012 〜
Data Download		GCOM-W Research Product Distribution Service
Data Format		HDF5 AMSR2 Higher Level Format 2.7MB
Stored Data		(1) Thin sea ice flag, (2) Sea Ice Concentration [%] ^*4
Data Quality Flag		L2 TSI Quality Flag 244KB
Algorithm Version		v1.1 (Cho, K., et al., 2019)
Validation Result		AMSR2 Research Product (Thin Sea Ice Detection) Validation Results 602KB

The specifications are defined in the AMSR2 Mission Requirement. The required accuracy is the goal accuracy of research product defined in the mission requirement.
Swath data is a format in which data for each footprint is stored in a two-dimensional array (observation points in scanning direction x number of scanning lines) in order of observation time.
Sea ice area (≦ 30 cm) is defined as thin ice area. A flag representing whether thin ice area is dominant in a pixel is stored in a product. Accuracy is expressed in right answer rate (%).
The second layer of data stores the SIC [%] of the standard product.

Reference

Cho, K., and K. Naoki, Evaluation of AMSR2 Thin Ice Area Extraction Algorithm Applied to the Sea Ice Zones of the Northern Hemisphere, Proceedings of the 40th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing, 2019, https://a-a-r-s.org/proceeding/ACRS2019/TuSS4-1.pdf

Revision History

August 1, 2023

AMSR2 Research Product TSI ver. 1.1 Released.

AMSR2 Detection of Thin Sea Ice product (TSI) Defect Report

294KB

January 31, 2019

AMSR2 Research Product TSI ver. 1.0

AMSR2 Research Product (Thin Sea Ice Detection) Validation Results

602KB

Data Catalog
Cryosphere
Sea Ice Motion Vector

Sea Ice Motion Vector
(Research Product)

Sea ice motion vector (SIM), in a unit of cm/s, is a research product to monitor daily sea ice circulations in polar oceans. This product is an essential physical parameter to quantify air-ocean momentum exchanges in polar oceans and is detected by calculating spatial lag correlations between pixel arrays on successive brightness temperature imageries.

To improve retrieval performances, two different products are provided using two algorithms. For more information on the algorithms, see "Validation Results"

Arctic products are now available to the public in advance.

Product Overview

Product Name		Sea Ice Motion Vector
Product Type		Research Product	Research Product
Processing Level		L3 (Grid data: Polar stereo NH)	L3 (Grid data: Polar stereo NH)
Product ID		SIM(Y)	SIM(R)
Spec.^*1	Area	Polar region over ocean	Polar region over ocean
	Spatial Resolution	approx. 50 km	approx. 50 km
	Accuracy Requirement	±6 cm^*2	±6 cm^*2
	Range	0 〜 40 cm/s	0 〜 40 cm/s
Latest Version		AMSR2: ver. 2.0 2024-06-19 release	AMSR2: ver. 1.01 2023-11-13 release
Product Period		AMSR2: July 2012 〜	AMSR2: July 2012 〜
Data Download		GCOM-W Research Product Distribution Service	GCOM-W Research Product Distribution Service
Data Format		ver. 1.0: HDF5 AMSR2 SIM Format 242KB ver. 2.0: NetCDF4 AMSR2 SIM(Y) Format 218KB	ver. 1.00: HDF5 AMSR2 SIM Format 242KB ver. 1.01: HDF5 AMSR2 SIM(R) Format 172KB
Stored Data		U component, V component, Eastward component, Northward component [cm/s]	U component, V component, Eastward component, Northward component [cm/s]
Data Quality Flag		Please refer to the followings ver. 1.0: HDF5 AMSR2 SIM Format ver. 2.0: NetCDF4 AMSR2 SIM(Y) Format	Please refer to the followings ver. 1.00: HDF5 AMSR2 SIM Format ver. 1.01: HDF5 AMSR2 SIM(R) Format
Algorithm Version		SIM(Y): v2.0 Yoshizawa, E.,et al., 2022 Shimada, K., et al., 2006	SIM(R): v1.01 Kimura, N. et al., 2013
Validation Result		SIM Validation Result 2.3MB	SIM Validation Result 2.3MB

The specifications are defined in the AMSR2 Mission Requirement. The required accuracy is the goal accuracy of research product defined in the mission requirement.
The two components of accuracy are the latitude component and the longitude component.

Reference

SIM(Y): Yoshizawa, E., Kamoshida, T., Shimada, T, Sea Ice Motion Vector Retrievals from AMSR2 89-GHz Data: Validation Algorithm with Simultaneous Multichannel Observations, 2022, doi: 10.1175/JTECH-D-22-0049.1

SIM(R): Kimura, N., A. Nishimura, Y. Tanaka, and H. Yamaguchi,, Influence of winter sea-ice motion on summer ice cover in the Arctic , Polar Research, 2013, doi: 10.3402/polar.v32i0.20193

SIM(Y): Shimada, K., T. Kamoshida, M. Itoh, S. Nishino, E. Carmack, F. McLaughlin, S. Zimmermann, A. Proshutinsky, Pacific Ocean Inflow: influence on catastrophic reduction of sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, Geophysical Research Letters, 2006, doi: 10.1029/2005GL025624

Revision History

SIM(Y)

June 19, 2024

ver. 2.0
*The accuracy was maintained from that of ver. 1.0.

March 14, 2022

ver. 1.0

SIM Validation Result

2.3MB

SIM(R)

November 13, 2023

ver. 1.01
*The accuracy was maintained from that of ver. 1.00.

March 14, 2022

ver. 1.00

SIM Validation Result

2.3MB

Data Catalog
Cryosphere
Thin Ice Thickness (Thermal Ice Thickness)

Thin Ice Thickness (Thermal Ice Thickness)
(Research Product)

Thin Ice Thickness (Thermal Ice Thickness) product detects thin ice regions with ice thickness of <20 cm and provides thin ice thickness for global sea ice-covered oceans during the winter season. The unit is "cm". The estimated sea ice thickness represents the thermal ice thickness, defined as the thickness at which the calculated total heat flux would be realized if the ice thickness were uniform in the satellite footprint. While thermal ice thickness may not necessarily coincide with a simple average of sea ice thickness in the AMSR2 footprint, it is suitable for calculating the heat flux between sea ice and the atmosphere and is useful for the estimation of important variables in the climate system, such as sea ice production and dense water formation. This product targets sea ice regions with an ice concentration of >30%. It is noted that this product differs from the Thin Ice Detection Product (TSI), which detects areas where the sea ice thickness is less than 30 cm in pixels with an ice concentration exceeding 90%.

Product Overview

Product Name		Thin Ice Thickness (Thermal Ice Thickness)
Product Type		Research Product
Processing Level		L2 (Swath data ^*2) and L3 (Grid data: Polar stereo NH/SH) ＊L3 only available in high resolution (10 km).
Product ID		TIT
Spec.^*1	Area	Polar region over ocean
	Spatial Resolution	approx. 12.5 km
	Accuracy Requirement	Release Criteria: Thin solid ice:±10cm, Active frazil:±3cm
	Range	0 〜20 cm
Latest Version		ver. 1.0 2024-03-25 release
Product Period		AMSR2: July 2012 〜^*3
Data Download		GCOM-W Research Product Distribution Service
Data Format		HDF5 AMSR2 Higher Level Format^*4 2.7MB
Stored Data		(1) Thin Ice Thickness [cm] (2) Sea ice type^5 (3) Sea Ice Concentration [%]^6
Data Quality Flag		L2 TIT Quality Flag 248KB
Algorithm Version		v.1.0 (Nakata, K., et al., 2019)
Validation Result		AMSR2 Research Product Validation Result of Thin Ice Thickness (Thermal Ice Thickness) 1.30MB

The specifications are defined in the AMSR2 Mission Requirement. The required accuracy is the goal accuracy of research product defined in the mission requirement.
Swath data is a format in which data for each footprint is stored in a two-dimensional array (observation points in scanning direction x number of scanning lines) in order of observation time.
L3 only provides winter data (Antarctic: March to November, Arctic: September to May).
Except for "Geophysicalname" length (43 characters)
Sea ice type flag value (0: Low ice concentration area of <30%, 1: Thick solid ice, 2: Thin solid ice, 3: Active frazil)
The third layer of data stores the SIC [%] of the standard product.

Reference

Nakata, K., K. I. Ohshima and S. Nihashi, Estimation of thin-ice thickness and discrimination of ice type From AMSR-E passive microwave data, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2019, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2018.2853590

Revision History

March 25, 2024

AMSR2 Research Product TIT ver. 1.0

Data Catalog
Cryosphere
Sea Ice Thickness ( >= 20 cm )

Sea Ice Thickness ( >= 20 cm )
(Research Product, Under Development)

Thickness of sea ice over 20cm, and unit is "cm". We are currently preparing for the release of the product.

Product Overview

Product Name		Sea Ice Thickness ( >= 20 cm )
Product Type		Research Product
Processing Level		L2 (Swath data ^*2) and L3 (Grid data: Polar stereo NH/SH)
Product ID		SIT
Spec.^*1	Area	Polar region over ocean
	Spatial Resolution	approx. 15 km
	Accuracy Requirement	Release Criteria ±20 cm
	Range	0 〜20 cm
Latest Version
Product Period
Data Download
Data Format
Stored Data
Data Quality Flag
Algorithm Version
Validation Result

The specifications are defined in the AMSR2 Mission Requirement. The required accuracy is the goal accuracy of research product defined in the mission requirement.
Swath data is a format in which data for each footprint is stored in a two-dimensional array (observation points in scanning direction x number of scanning lines) in order of observation time.

Reference

Revision History

Sea Ice Concentration (Standard Product)

Product Overview

Reference

Revision History

High-resolution Sea Ice Concentration (Research Product)

Feature of HSI

Validation Method

Product area open to the public

Product Overview

Reference

Revision History

Detection of Thin Sea Ice(Research Product)

Feature of TSI

Validation Method

Product Overview

Reference

Revision History

Sea Ice Motion Vector (Research Product)

Product Overview

Reference

Revision History

Thin Ice Thickness (Thermal Ice Thickness) (Research Product)

Product Overview

Reference

Revision History

Sea Ice Thickness ( >= 20 cm ) (Research Product, Under Development)

Product Overview

Reference

Revision History

Sea Ice Concentration
(Standard Product)

High-resolution Sea Ice Concentration
(Research Product)

Detection of Thin Sea Ice
(Research Product)

Sea Ice Motion Vector
(Research Product)

Thin Ice Thickness (Thermal Ice Thickness)
(Research Product)

Sea Ice Thickness ( >= 20 cm )
(Research Product, Under Development)