Regional melt-pond and open water fractions of thin Arctic first-year drift ice during ICE12 drift experiment north of Svalbard, 2012

The data set presents regional scale ( about 150 km) morphological properties of a relatively thin, 70–90 cm modal thickness, first-year Arctic sea ice pack in an advanced stage of melt. The data comprises fractions of three surface types (bare ice, melt ponds, and open water) along the flight tracks calculated from images acquired by a helicopter-borne camera system during ice-survey flights.The data were collected during the 8-day ICE12 drift experiment carried out by the Norwegian Polar Institute in the Arctic, north of Svalbard at 82.3 N, from 26 July to 3 August 2012. The data set is based on >10 000 classified images covering about 28 km2 in the study area.