Aqua/AMSR-E L2 AMSR2 Format Sea Ice Concentration

  • DOI: 10.57746/EO.01gs73ax2b57cfygsmgmymsc3f
  • Last Updated: 2023-02-14
Data Progress: Complete
G-Portal

Product Summary

Aqua/AMSR-E L2 AMSR2 Format Sea Ice Concentration dataset is obtained from the AMSR-E sensor onboard Aqua and produced by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Aqua of NASA was launched on May 4th, 2002 in Sun-synchronous sub-recurrent Orbit. Aqua observes various kinds of physical phenomena related to water and energy circulation from space. Aqua data promoted the research activities for interactions between the atmosphere, oceans and lands, and their effects on climate changes.
AMSR-E scans the Earth's surface by mechanically rotating the antenna and acquires radiance data of the Earth's surface. Each frequency band is monitored by vertical and horizontal polarized wave. It conically scans and keeps an angle of incidence on the earth surface (a nominal of 55 degrees) and accomplishes a swath width of about 1450 km. The AMSR-E reached its limit to maintain the antenna rotation speed necessary for regular observations, and the AMSR-E restarted its observation in slow rotation mode (2 rotations per minute) on December 4, 2012. However, the AMSR-E reached its limit to maintain the antenna rotation speed necessary for slow rotation mode and it automatically halted its observation and rotation on December 4, 2015.
This product includes Sea Ice Concentration (SIC). The technique uses data from the 6 GHz and 37 GHz channels at vertical polarization to obtain an initial estimate of sea ice concentration and ice temperature. The derived ice temperature is then utilized to estimate the emissivity for the corresponding observations at all the other channels. Ice concentrations are derived mainly from 37 GHz and 19 GHz channels, as in the Bootstrap technique, but makes use of emissivity instead of brightness temperatures to minimizes errors associated with spatial changes in sea ice temperatures.
The ice temperature is in the end normalized using the derived ice concentration value, for it to represent temperature only of the sea ice part of the satellite observational area. The physical quantity unit is %.
Also, the quality flag for each observation point (Pixel Data Quality) is stored.
The provided format is HDF5. Spatial resolution is 10 km. The current version of the product is "Version 8". The generation unit is scene (defined as a half orbit).

Platform
Aqua
Sensor
AMSR-E

Coverage

Temporal Coverage

2002-06-01 to 2011-10-05

Spatial Coverage

Bounding Rectangle
(90.0°, -180.0°, -90.0°, 180.0°)

Resolution

10 km

Location

  • GLOBAL > GLOBAL OCEAN
Dataset Short Name
Aqua_AMSR-E_L2_AMSR2_Format_SIC
Platform / Sensor
Aqua / AMSR-E
Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Bounding Rectangle
(90.0°, -180.0°, -90.0°, 180.0°)
Temporal Coverage
2002-06-01 to 2011-10-05
Product Level ID
L2
Version Description

Version 1, 2003-09-19, Notavailable
Version 3, 2005-03-03, Notavailable
Version 4, 2006-03-15, Notavailable
Version 7, 2011-09-29, Notavailable
Version 8, 2019-07-05, Available

File Format
HDF5
Dataset Type
None / Scene
Resolution
Spatial Resolution
10 km
Temporal Resolution
None
Dataset Progress
Complete
Projection
None
Collection Data Type
SCIENCE_QUALITY
Get Data
https://gportal.jaxa.jp/gpr/?lang=en
Dataset Title
Aqua/AMSR-E L2 AMSR2 Format Sea Ice Concentration
Distribution Format
HDF5
Fees
Free
Citation
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. 2002. Aqua/AMSR-E L2 AMSR2 Format Sea Ice Concentration. https://doi.org/10.57746/EO.01gs73ax2b57cfygsmgmymsc3f
Access Constraints

No constraints but users need to be registered with the G-portal User Registration system to download files.

Use Constraints

The user is entitled to use G-Portal data free of charge without any restrictions (including commercial use) except for the condition about acknowledgement of data credit as stipulated in G-portal terms of use 7.(2).Click here for detailed G-Portal data usage constrains.

G-Portal Terms of service
https://gportal.jaxa.jp/gpr/index/eula?lang=en
ISO Topic Categories
  • OCEANS
  • Environment
Science Keywords
  • EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > SEA ICE > SEA ICE CONCENTRATION
Location Keywords
  • GLOBAL > GLOBAL OCEAN

ISO Topic Categories is the keywords in the ISO 19115 - Geographic Information Metadata.

Science Keywords hosts Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Keywords which are a hierarchical set of controlled Earth Science vocabularies that help ensure Earth science data, services, and variables are described in a consistent and comprehensive manner and allow for the precise searching of metadata and subsequent retrieval of data, services, and variables.