The active brine rejection in coastal polynyas which are covered with thin sea ice is responsible for the formation of dense and bottom water. Because quantitative estimation of ice production has not been made due to the difficulty of direct in situ measurements, thin sea-ice detection by use of satellite microwave data is a very useful way for the investigation of coastal polynyas. In this study, we present the global mapping of sea-ice production and surface heat/salt-flux from the satellite thin sea-ice algorithm and heat-flux calculation. An algorithm that estimates thin-ice thickness from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) data has been developed based on the comparison with ice-thickness estimation from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer data. This algorithm uses 37 and 85 GHz brightness temperature data, and can also detect large icebergs and landfast ice. Using thin-ice thickness distribution derived from this new algorithm and surface input data from the ECMWF or NECP/NCAR, heat-flux calculation is performed on a daily basis during 1992–2008 over the sea-ice covered region in both polar oceans. We estimate sea-ice production under the assumption that heat loss in polynyas is assumed to coincide with ice production, ignoring the effect of oceanic heat flux from below. The mappings for both hemispheres show that the high ice production is confined to the coastal polynya areas. Coastal polynyas are also presented as significant heat-loss and salt-release areas. For the Arctic Ocean, the Chukchi Sea Alaskan Coastal Polynya, North Water Polynya and Northeast Water Polynya are shown as the high ice production areas. Interannual variability of each Arctic coastal polynya is also discussed. For the Southern Ocean, we also show the mapping of surface heat/salt-flux which has not been well understood and is useful for validating and providing boundary conditions for coupled atmosphere–ice–ocean models. The geographical distribution of annual net heat (salt) flux shows a distinct contrast; significant cooling of (salt releasing into) the ocean in the coastal region, and net heating of (fresh water releasing into) the ocean in the offshore region. This contrast is partly a result of heat transport by sea ice; sea ice formed by obtaining negative latent heat and fresh water in the coastal region is transported to the offshore, and then it releases negative latent heat and fresh water by melting.