Satellite observations for detecting and forecasting sea-ice conditions:A summary of advances made in the SPICES Project by the EU's Horizon 2020 Programme

The detection, monitoring, and forecasting of sea-ice conditions, including their extremes, is very important for ship navigation and offshore activities, and for monitoring of sea-ice processes and trends. We summarize here recent advances in the monitoring of sea-ice conditions and their extremes...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote Sensing
Main Authors: Mäkynen, Marko, Haapala, Jari, Aulicino, Giuseppe, Balan-Sarojini, Beena, Balmaseda, Magdalena, Gegiuc, Alexandru, Girard-Ardhuin, Fanny, Hendricks, Stefan, Heygster, Georg, Istomina, Larysa, Kaleschke, Lars, Karvonen, Juha, Krumpen, Thomas, Lensu, Mikko, Mayer, Michael, Parmiggiani, Flavio, Ricker, Robert, Rinne, Eero, Schmitt, Amelie, Similä, Markku, Tietsche, Steffen, Tonboe, Rasmus, Wadhams, Peter, Winstrup, Mai, Zuo, Hao
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Arctic
Forecasting
Remote sensing
Sea ice
Online Access:https://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications/6e1f2661-0161-4841-ac15-e11c56629ce5
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12071214
https://backend.orbit.dtu.dk/ws/files/214113478/remotesensing_12_01214.pdf
Description
Summary:The detection, monitoring, and forecasting of sea-ice conditions, including their extremes, is very important for ship navigation and offshore activities, and for monitoring of sea-ice processes and trends. We summarize here recent advances in the monitoring of sea-ice conditions and their extremes from satellite data as well as the development of sea-ice seasonal forecasting capabilities. Our results are the outcome of the three-year (2015-2018) SPICES (Space-borne Observations for Detecting and Forecasting Sea-Ice Cover Extremes) project funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 programme. New SPICES sea-ice products include pancake ice thickness and degree of ice ridging based on synthetic aperture radar imagery, Arctic sea-ice volume and export derived from multisensor satellite data, and melt pond fraction and sea-ice concentration using Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) radiometer data. Forecasts of July sea-ice conditions from initial conditions in May showed substantial improvement in some Arctic regions after adding sea-ice thickness (SIT) data to the model initialization. The SIT initialization also improved seasonal forecasts for years with extremely low summer sea-ice extent. New SPICES sea-ice products have a demonstrable level of maturity, and with a reasonable amount of further work they can be integrated into various operational sea-ice services.

Similar Items