This week’s interactive exercise will use EO data to look at changes in sea ice extent.

For this exercise, we will use the World View tool from NASA

Follow the steps below and then join the discussion to compare results and discuss ideas with other learners. Once you feel confident with the tool, you can explore other locations and data sets of your choice.

You may find it helpful to open the exercise in a separate window.

1. Go to the World View tool. (When you first visit World View you will be offered a tour of its features. You can take this tour if you wish to, but it is not necessary for this exercise).

2. Click on ‘Add Layers’ and under shipping click on sea ice. Then, with Terra/Modis, selected tick the box next to sea ice. You can then close this panel. You will now be able to see sea ice extent in red on the map.

3. Move the map to focus on Greenland, or you can also press the globe on the top right and change the projection view to the Arctic. Press the film camera icon found next to the date at the bottom left. Set the start date to March 2017 until today’s date. Set the frame rate to 2 or 3 frames per second, and press play.

4. Discuss the changes you see in sea ice content in the discussion below, is it what you expected?

5. Now set the dates to a similar time period but for a different year where Greenland data is available, and compare this to what you saw in 2017. Are there any differences in sea ice extent in the same months?

Feel free to explore the data over different time periods, and discuss anything interesting you find below.

Take the end of week test

You can take the end of week test by clicking on the test button located on the top-right.