Duncan, Kyle; Farrell, Sinead L (2026): Gridded 25 km Arctic sea ice deformation data derived from the ICESat-2 University of Maryland-Ridge Detection Algorithm [dataset]. PANGAEA, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.990274
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Published: 2026-02-04 • DOI registered: 2026-02-04
Abstract:
This data-set contains sea ice deformation variables at the pan-Arctic scale (> 60 degrees N), on a 25 km Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid 2.0 (EASE2) for each month from October 2018 to September 2025. Deformation variables are obtained by applying the University of Maryland-Ridge Detection Algorithm (UMD-RDA) (Duncan & Farrell, 2022), a surface retracker, to the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) global geolocated photon heights product (ATL03) (Neumann et al., 2023; Neumann et al., 2025). From the sea ice surface topography obtained by the UMD-RDA, deformation variables such as surface roughness, pressure ridge sail height, maximum sail height, sail width and sail spacing, pressure ridge length, and ridging intensity are derived. Each deformation variable is accompanied by the number of measurements per grid cell (indicated with suffix n) and a separate interpolated variable (indicated with suffix interp). Interpolated variables are bounded where the AMSR2 monthly mean sea ice concentration (Spreen et al., 2008), provided in each file, is greater than or equal to 15%. Please refer to the provided "User Guide" for further information about this product.
References:
Duncan, Kyle; Farrell, Sinead L (2022): Determining Variability in Arctic Sea Ice Pressure Ridge Topography With ICESat‐2. Geophysical Research Letters, 49(18), e2022GL100272, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL100272
Neumann, Thomas; Brenner, Anita; Hancock, David; Robbins, John; Gibbons, A; Lee, Jeff; Harbeck, Kaitlin; Saba, Jack; Luthcke, Scott; Rebold, Timothy (2023): ATLAS/ICESat-2 L2A Global Geolocated Photon Data, Version 6 [dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center, https://doi.org/10.5067/ATLAS/ATL03.006
Neumann, Thomas; Hancock, David; Robbins, John; Gibbons, A; Lee, Jeff; Brenner, Anita; Felikson, Denis; Harbeck, Kaitlin; Saba, Jack; Luthcke, Scott; Rebold, Timothy; Reese, Ann; Sutterly, Tyler (2025): ATLAS/ICESat-2 L2A Global Geolocated Photon Data, Version 7 [dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center, https://doi.org/10.5067/ATLAS/ATL03.007
Spreen, Gunnar; Kaleschke, Lars; Heygster, Georg (2008): Sea ice remote sensing using AMSR-E 89-GHz channels. Journal of Geophysical Research, 113(C2), https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JC003384
Documentation:
Duncan, Kyle; Farrell, Sinead L (2025): ICESat-2 University of Maryland-Ridge Detection Algorithm Gridded Arctic Sea Ice Deformation Data Product. User guide, Version 1.0, University of Maryland, UMD_Arctic_SeaIceDeformation_UserGuide.pdf
Funding:
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), grant/award no. NA24NESX432C0001: Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies – CISESS at the University of Maryland/ESSIC
Coverage:
Median Latitude: 75.000000 * Median Longitude: 0.000000 * South-bound Latitude: 60.000000 * West-bound Longitude: -180.000000 * North-bound Latitude: 90.000000 * East-bound Longitude: 180.000000
Date/Time Start: 2018-10-01T00:00:00 * Date/Time End: 2025-09-30T00:00:00
Event(s):
Parameter(s):
| # | Name | Short Name | Unit | Principal Investigator | Method/Device | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DATE/TIME | Date/Time | Duncan, Kyle | Geocode | ||
| 2 | netCDF file | netCDF | Duncan, Kyle | |||
| 3 | netCDF file (File Size) | netCDF (Size) | Bytes | Duncan, Kyle |
Change history:
2026-03-24T06:15:44 – File IS2-UMDRDA-NH-EASE2-25000m-v01-202509.nc for September 2025 was added.
License:
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0)
Status:
Curation Level: Enhanced curation (CurationLevelC)
Size:
84 data points