Pan-Antarctic evaluation of National Snow and Ice Data  Center (NSIDC) sea ice drift product using high-resolution  SAR and buoy data

Koo, Younghyun; Meier, Walter N.; Stewart, J. Scott

doi:10.5194/eo-1-129-2026

Articles | Volume 1, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/eo-1-129-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/eo-1-129-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 1, issue 1

Research article

|

30 Sep 2026

Research article |

| 30 Sep 2026

Pan-Antarctic evaluation of National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) sea ice drift product using high-resolution SAR and buoy data

Younghyun Koo, Walter N. Meier, and J. Scott Stewart

Data sets

Polar Pathfinder Daily 25 km EASE-Grid Sea Ice Motion Vectors (NSIDC-0116, Version 4) M. Tschudi et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/INAWUWO7QH7B

SAR-derived Antarctic sea ice velocity (2015-2023) (Version v2) Younghyun Koo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22942305

Model code and software

YoungHyunKoo/sea_ice_drift: Version 1 (Version v1) Younghyun Koo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22792788

nansencenter/sea_ice_drift: SeaIceDrift-0.7 (Version v0.7) Anton Korosov https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1446409

Short summary

Passive microwave (PMW) satellite data have been widely used to monitor Antarctic sea ice velocity (SIV) on a pan-Antarctic scale. We present a comprehensive evaluation of a PMW-derived Antarctic SIV by leveraging high-resolution SIV fields derived from synthetic aperture radar imagery. We found a widespread ~ 1 km d⁻¹ underestimation of ice drift speed across the Southern Ocean, caused by optimal interpolation.