Raw microwave brightness over the poles, near real-time
What it measures. Raw microwave readings over the Arctic and Antarctic, capturing how much natural microwave energy each surface gives off (a clue to whether it is ice, water, or snow), delivered quickly after collection.
How it's made. Gathered by the SSM/I and SSMIS microwave sensors on U.S. Defense Meteorological satellites and placed on daily polar map grids.
How & where you'd use it. A building-block input that scientists turn into sea-ice and snow maps; it is rarely used directly except by those running their own ice-detection methods.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2024-01-01 → 2026-01-14
- Measured byDMSP 5D-3/F16 (SSMIS) · DMSP 5D-3/F17 (SSMIS) · DMSP 5D-3/F18 (SSMIS)
- Processing levelLevel 3
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, -60
- FormatsnetCDF-4
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
The Near-Real-Time DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Daily Polar Gridded Brightness Temperature product provides near-real-time polar stereographic gridded daily brightness temperatures for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="NSIDC-0080",
version="2",
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_CPRDBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
- Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
- Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
- A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
- Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Near-Real-Time DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Daily Polar Gridded Brightness Temperatures, Version 2 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- SMMR, SSM/I, and SSMIS Sensors Summary VIEW RELATED INFORMATION