Loss and Degradation of NOAA Sea Ice and Glacier data
Premier US data sets defunded
A very short post on breaking news that will almost certainly impact Alaska and Arctic Climate science and the lives, livelihoods and economics of people.
On May 6, 2025 NOAA/NCEI announced the retroactive termination of funding for keystone sea ice products. These are the products that I use for much of the sea ice analysis and information I present in this newsletter and in many other venues. This data helps inform decisions by people and businesses in Alaska and beyond.
The User Notice from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (screen captured below) is here and includes a request for testimonials. I’ll be sending in my comments.
There are other global sea ice datasets from Europe and Japan but one big advantage of the NSIDC version is the ready availability of detailed quantitative regional ice information across the satellite period of record. Hopefully these other groups will be able to fill that void.
Damn, damn, Damn. This is crazy. Where's the savings??? Why do they even bother? Thank God for Europe. Can you explain this to us -their possible motivations?
I am so sorry to learn of this, Rick. It's hard to take in the implications of losing these programs, products, and people. Thanks for posting about this today.