Where sea ice covers the ocean each day, from NASA's MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite (1 km detail)

In plain English

What it measures. Where sea ice covers the ocean each day, along with the ice surface temperature. Each file holds five minutes of data from a strip the satellite passed over.

How it's made. Derived from the calibrated light measurements of the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite, at about 1-km detail.

How & where you'd use it. Used to monitor sea ice extent and conditions in the polar oceans, supporting climate tracking, shipping, and studies of how ice is changing.

What's measured

OCEANS › SEA ICE › ICE EXTENTOCEANS › SEA ICE › ICE TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

Time span2000-02-24 → ongoing
Measured byTerra (MODIS)
Processing levelLevel 2
Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
FormatsHDF-EOS2
StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

Watch sea-surface temperature and marine heatwaves
Spot algal blooms and ocean-colour shifts
Support fisheries and coastal monitoring

Official description

This global Level-2 (L2) product provides daily sea ice extent and ice surface temperature. The data are derived from Level-1B radiances acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra satellite. Each data granule contains 5 minutes of swath data observed at a resolution of 1000 m. The terms "Version 61" and "Collection 6.1" are used interchangeably in reference to this release of MODIS data.

Get the data

mod29_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MOD29",
    version="61",
    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.

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
MODIS/Terra Sea Ice Extent 5-Min L2 Swath 1km, Version 61 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
MODIS Grids and Tile Locators VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
MODIS Sea Ice Products User Guide to Collection 6.1 VIEW RELATED INFORMATION