The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has released a second set of sea ice animations for Google Earth. As before the images are available in 30- 60- and 90-day animations of sea ice concentration and extent.

While the first set of animations, released in late August, are based on data from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F13 satellite, the new set is based on data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite. The significant differences between the two datasets are: AMSR-E has twice the resolution as SSM/I (12.5km vs 25km) and AMSR-E has a wider swath so there is better coverage near the pole.

Monthly average sea ice extents are also shown to give an indication of how current conditions compare with more typical conditions.

The daily updates are automatically loaded into Google Earth at startup so users always have the most recent images. Users with limited memory or bandwidth may want to choose a shorter time series.

The new animations, as well as the first series, are available from the virtual globes home page.

For more information on Arctic sea ice and this year's melt season, see "Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis" at NSIDC.

For more information on the Near Real-Time SSM/I EASE-Grid Daily Global Ice Concentration and Snow Extent (NISE) product, see the catalog page.

For more information on AMSR-E data at NSIDC, see the home page.

These animations use the time slider in Google Earth to animate the images. For information on how to use the time slider, see the tutorial.