Level-2 product definition

The Level-2 product is the result of the processing from Level-1b brightness temperatures to Level-2 ice thickness. The product is provided in the EASE2 grid for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, EPSG:6931 and EPSG:6932 resampled at 12.5 km resolution. The product is provided in NetCDF format and contains the following variables following the CF conventions:

variable name	description	unit	dimensions
sea_ice_thickness	mean ice thickness in given grid cell as per retrieval	m	1440 x 1440
sea_ice_thickness standard_error	the standard error as described in Uncertainties	m	1440 x 1440
sea_ice_thickness quality_flag	product quality flag	1	1440 x 1440

The quality flag is a 16-bit mask with the following bits:

Bit	Description
0	Validity of the retrieved ice thickness (set for valid)
1	Land mask (set for land)
2	Ice shelf mask (set for ice shelf)
3	Sea ice edge mask (set for sea ice edge)
4	full sea ice cover mask (set for sea ice concentration > 0.90)
5-16	Reserved

The quality flag is an important indicator for users of the product. While for full ice coverage of a grid cell the retrieval gives the best, i.e., lowest uncertainty sea ice thickness results, the retrieval is still valid for lower ice concentrations. The sea ice edge mask is set for grid cells where the retrieval is influenced by the presence of the sea ice edge. The ice shelf mask is set for grid cells where the retrieval is not valid due to the presence of an ice shelf. The land mask bit is set for grid cells where the retrieval is not valid due to the presence of land. The validity of the retrieved ice thickness is set for grid cells where the retrieval is valid in general, which is the major indicator for users of the product.