These are high resolution (1 km) recorded Local Area Coverage National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar orbiting satellite observations from a period in 2000 and from late 2003 to mid-2013. These are swaths recorded over the Antarctic or adjacent Southern Ocean. These are from the NOAA polar orbiting satellite series (NOAA-12 through NOAA-19, as those satellites were operationally available). The file name are the following:

For the 2000 period: yyyy_ddd_hhmm-LAC.ssdddhh.Z where yyyy is the year, ddd is the day of the year, hh is the hour and mm the minutes. The ss is the satellite (e.g. 12 for NOAA-12, etc.). e.g. 2000_183_0138-LAC1518301.Z.

For the 2003 through 2013 period: LACssdddhh(b) where ss is the satellite (e.g. 15 for NOAA-15, etc.), ddd is the day of the year, and hh is the hour. If there are two images with the same hour, the second image has a ‘b’ added to the file name e.g. LAC1636208 or LAC1600118b.