Newly Available Valid Ice Masks Depend on Operational Ice Center Analyses

Beginning in March 2015, processing at NSIDC for passive-microwave-based sea ice products was updated to use monthly masks based on the U.S. National Ice Center's long-term, 1972 to 2007, manual sea ice analyses to filter out likely false ice detections. These masks are now available from the NASA NSIDC DAAC as a stand-alone data set: Polar Stereographic Valid Ice Masks Derived from National Ice Center Monthly Sea Ice Climatologies. The valid ice masks are based on the National Ice Center Arctic Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies in Gridded Format data set, a NOAA@NSIDC data product.