Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets
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HadISST.2.2.1.0 Data: download

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IMPORTANT POINTS TO NOTE

Sea ice concentrations

HadISST.2 SEA ICE CONCENTRATIONS are given as fractions, between 0. and 1., unless otherwise stated. Values greater than 0. and less than 0.15 have been reset as 0 (open water), as described in Titchner and Rayner (2014).

Data are available in NetCDF format. NetCDF files are CF compliant (external link).

Data are also available as a set of compressed plain text files in this data format (given as concentrations multiplied by 100).

Precalculated sea ice extent and area

HadISST.2 has a generous ocean mask (see IMPORTANT POINTS TO NOTE above). We have used a new 1 degree land/sea mask for use in our extent and area calculations, which is also available below.More detials about the mask can be found here.

HadISST.2 SEA ICE EXTENT and AREA are available as plain text files in this data format (given in millions of square kilometers).

WARNING: Other sea ice data sets are likely to contain different land/sea masks. This can significantly affect the values of extent and area, so please take this into consideration during any comparisons. See IMPORTANT POINTS TO NOTE at the top of this page.