Caption: Composite image of visible and thermal data from multiple satellite passes over the Arctic region, showing Greenland (below and left of center, then clockwise), northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, and northern Europe. The North Pole and Arctic Ocean are at the center. The red areas are warm, where water is open and land free of snow. The blue areas are either clouds or areas of cold, where water and land are covered in ice or snow. The data was collected by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), an instrument on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting satellite, taken at 2 p.m. local solar time as part of research by the Space Science Engineering Center.
Photo by: courtesy Xuanji Wang and Jeff Key
Date: March 2003
High-resolution 300 DPI JPEG

Caption: Steam fog rises above a sea ice fracture in the western Arctic Ocean, north of Alaska, during the fall of 1995. Linear fractures in the sea ice form primarily in response to wind stress. The fog forms when cold air over the ice meets the warm, moist air over the open water.
Photo by: courtesy Jeff Key
Date: 1995
High-resolution 200 DPI JPEG