Impact of changing ice and metocean conditions on offshore design and operations in the Arctic regions

• Main Authors: Sandven, Stein, Drange, Helge, Lisæter, Knut Arild, Bertino, Laurent, Shalina, Lena
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2007
• Subjects: Arctic; Fram Strait; Barents Sea; Climate change; Climate model; Sea ice; Iceberg; Atmosphere; Ocean; Arctic Ocean; Kara Sea; Chukchi Sea; Greenland; East Siberian Sea; Beaufort Sea; Chukchi; Iceberg*; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/7541120; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7541120

The objective of the project has been to 1) review sea ice and related met-ocean conditions of importance for Arctic offshore operations, 2) quantify regional and interannual variability of the sea ice in different regions of the Arctic, and 3) assess future outlook for Arctic met-ocean conditions of importance for offshore design and operations based on climate model simulations. The project has made a state-of-the-art review of scientific results regarding ice and met-ocean conditions in different parts of the Arctic Ocean. Results from new publications and studies are synthesised, with focus on sea ice and iceberg conditions as well as atmospheric and ocean processes with impact on the ice conditions. Analysis of satellite data and model simulations have been performed to study variability of the ice conditions in the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, East Siberian Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea and Greenland waters over the last 50 years. Scenarios for future changes of the Arctic climate by use of climate models have been investigated. Possible impact of projected changes in ice and metocean conditions on offshore design and operations in different Arctic regions is discussed. Results of recent sea ice model simulation in the Arctic from 1958 to present based on ERA40 forcing fields from European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) are presented. This is the best reanalyzed atmospheric forcing fields available for the Arctic, extending back to 1958. These fields have been used to run the North-Atlantic model at NERSC, which consists of a Multi-Category ice model coupled to the HYCOM ocean circulation model. The Multi- Category ice model treats the ice cover as a collection of ice floes in different thickness categories. This makes it possible to model the ice thickness probability density function for each grid cell. Ice thickness distribution gives a description of how much of the thickest ice generated by ridges is present in each grid cell. The model simulations from 1958 contains also ice drift and ...