The rescue and reuse of 1960's nimbus satellite data: Preliminary sea ice extent results for 1964, 1966, and 1969

It is of critical importance in the study of Earth Sciences and climate to reliably extend our data sets farther back in time. It may be possible to build a 50-year sea ice extent record. The current satellite sea ice record starts in 1978, however polar observing satellites recorded sea ice data as early as 1962[1]. Accessing this data is difficult as many of the original data sets have been lost. The time to recover this information is running out as the data, hardware and expertise are rapidly dying out. This project has recovered much of this 1960's data and used it to determine monthly sea ice extent for both the Arctic and Antarctic.