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Full catalog/NmIcEdg2
NmIcEdg2·v1·dataset

Where the sea ice edge was, old satellites (Nimbus)

Nimbus Ice Edge Points from Nimbus Visible Imagery L2, CSV V001
cryosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 2 ASCII
In plain English

What it measures. Marks where the edge of the sea ice was located near the North and South Poles at various times during the mid-to-late 1960s.

How it's made. Estimated from recovered visible imagery taken by the early Nimbus 1, 2, and 3 satellites, delivered as point locations in a simple CSV file.

How & where you'd use it. Extends the record of polar sea-ice extent back decades before modern satellites, helping researchers study long-term ice change.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › SEA ICE › ICE EDGES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1969-04-24 → 1970-01-21
  • Measured byNimbus-1 (AVCS Nimbus-1, CAMERAS) · Nimbus-2 (AVCS Nimbus-2, CAMERAS) · Nimbus-3 (CAMERAS, IDCS Nimbus-3)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, -50
  • FormatsASCII
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Measure sea ice, snow cover and glaciers
  • Watch ice-sheet elevation change
  • Track freeze/thaw and permafrost
Official description

This data set (NmIcEdg2) estimates the location of the North and South Pole sea ice edges at various times during the mid to late 1960s, based on recovered Nimbus 1 (1964), Nimbus 2 (1966), and Nimbus 3 (1969) visible imagery.

Get the data

nmicedg2_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NmIcEdg2",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.