RGPS Data Products

Basic Products

These are based on the full set of moving tie points that are tracked from week to week throughout the entire basin of the Arctic Ocean. The initial spacing of the tie points, at fall freeze-up, is 5 km. This initial grid, consisting of approximately half a million 5 x 5 km cells, then moves and deforms with the ice cover. Therefore these products are "Lagrangian": they are computed following the same tie points or cells. The number following each product is the size in megabytes of the weekly data set.

• Ice motion (26 Mb)
• Ice age histogram (146 Mb)
• Ice thickness histogram (90 Mb)
• Backscatter histogram (50 Mb)
• Multiyear ice fraction (36 Mb)
• Open water fraction (36 Mb)

Gridded Products

These are interpolated from the basic products to a fixed, 50 km grid. Therefore these products are "Eulerian": they apply to fixed regions of space. The number following each product is the size in megabytes of the weekly data set.

• Ice motion (0.2 Mb)
• Ice age histogram (1 Mb)
• Ice thickness histogram (1 Mb)
• Backscatter histogram (1 Mb)
• Multiyear ice fraction (1 Mb)
• Open water fraction (1 Mb)

Other Products

• Ice motion, by user request, computed on a fixed 5 km grid. (16 Mb)
• Dates of melt onset and freeze-up, once/year each, on a fixed 50 km grid. (21 Mb)
• Surface wind, temperature, and pressure fields, twice/day, on a fixed 50 km grid. Interpolated from input data. (0.2 Mb)

For more details, see Sections 4 and 5 of the RGPS Description by Ron Kwok.

For technical questions about RGPS products, contact Ron Kwok.