Earth ID: 3992

Daily Sea Ice during Aug & Sept 2012 with Winds

Visualizations by Cindy Starr Released on September 19, 2012

Early in the month of August, 2012, storms in the Arctic affected the motion of the sea ice north of Siberia and Alaska. This animation shows the motion of the winds over the Arctic in conjunction with seasonal melting of the Arctic sea ice from August 1 through September 13, 2012, when the NASA scientists determined that the sea ice reached its annual minimum extent. The surface winds, shown my moving arrows, are colored by the velocity. Slower winds are shown in blue, medium in green and the fast winds are shown in red.

Note: Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who calculate the sea ice minimum based on a 5-day trailing average, identified September 16 as the date when the lowest minimum extent occurred. NASA scientists who calculate area on each individual day identified September 13th as the date of the minimum sea ice, although there is little difference in size between the two days.

Visualization Credits

Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Visualizer
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Jefferson Beck (USRA): Producer
Josefino Comiso (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Robert Gersten (Wyle Information Systems): Scientist
Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Project Support
Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Project Support

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.

Wind data provided by NCEP Reanalysis project at the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) at NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric research(NOAA/OAR) from the Physical Sciences Division (PSD) in Boulder, Colorado, USA. For more detail on this data, see their Web site at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/

The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3992

Data Used:

Comiso's Daily Sea Ice Concentration

Data Compilation - NASA/GSFC - 08/01/2012 - 09/13/2012

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also referred to as: Surface Flux

Model - NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD - 08/01/2012 - 09/13/2012

Wind data provided by NCEP Reanalysis project at the Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Division of NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/

view all stories where this data set is used