Sea Ice Velocity

90 Minute Sea Ice Velocity Field

Daily Sea Ice Velocity Field

The velocity of sea ice within the footprint of the radar is calculated and above are plots of those velocities. Every 15 minutes, after the newest radar images are recorded and sent to Fairbanks, the most recent 90 minutes of radar imagery is used to estimate the ice velocity for that hour. The data for each hourly velocity estimate are first filtered in space and time with a similarity filter to reduce vectors affected by noise in the radar signal. The median velocity over the 90 minutes is then taken to further reduce noise influence. The daily average is found from the similarity and median filtered data for the entire day.

Sea Ice Velocity in Google Earth

Files that open in Google Earth showing sea ice velocity and radar image associated with the plotted velocity field can be downloaded by clicking on the links below. Recent Ice Velocity is the most recent 1.5 hours of ice motion and is updated every 15 minutes. Daily Ice Velocity is the previous day's average sea ice velocity calculated from the radar imagery.