Sea ice of the Arctic, Gallery. RDC ScanEx

Gallery

Title
Sea ice of the Arctic

Acquisition date
22.04.2004

Sensor
IRS, LISS

800 x 870
JPEG (872 Kб)

Sea ice of the Arctic

The black and white optical image of 22/04/04 reflects ice conditions in the Barents Sea between the islands Kolguev and Novaya Zemlya where a section of the major traffic artery runs – the Northern Sea Route. Further on the Northern Sea Route goes through the Kara Strait across the seas of the Arctic Ocean connecting the European and Far East ports of Igarka, Dudunka, Dickon, Tixi, Pevek and Provideniya. The Northern Sea Route or passage was first followed within one period of navigation in 1932 by the Soviet expedition led by Otto Yulyevich Schmidt. Hereafter it became the main sea route of Russia in the Arctic region. This vital traffic artery is used for transportation of fuel, equipment, food and mineral raw materials within 2 – 4 months of navigation period.

Ice appears to be the main obstacle for vessels following the route as well as changes in ice conditions on the way caused by physical and geographic peculiarities and seasonal weather conditions. For instance, during freeze-up in fall-winter and spring periods ice fields form similar to those shown on the image under review, which continuously drift due to the action of wind and currents. In summer season the requirement exists to monitor sea areas free of ice and so-called massifs of ice, which could be passed through only if assisted by ice-breakers and which are not fully destructed even in the warmest months. Sometimes favorable ice conditions may exist during warm winter allowing ice-class tankers passage without ice-breakers convoy.

This leads to the conclusion that quality of ice and synoptic forecasts defines proper disposition of ice-breaking and aviation resources along the route,

and timely notification to vessels about weather and ice conditions at all sections of the sea route may ensure safety of their passage. For this reason ice maps are produced to monitor changes in ice conditions in the seas, in particular the most useful are dynamic maps of ice conditions produced on the basis of imagery acquired during navigation period or within a certain timeframe. Large area coverage, information frequency and prompt processing allow using satellite data to support navigation and all-year-round sailing along the Northern Sea Route. The most efficient for these purposes is application of all-weather radar imagery data of various spatial resolution and coverage. The most important advantage of radar imagery versus optical imagery systems is that it could be round-the-clock under any weather conditions since clouds are transparent for this imagery type. Winter conditions with very short daylight periods as well as temperate and southern latitudes are characterized by overcast situations that could last for a week or longer, therefore radar imagery has become the only technique for prompt acquisition of data on the earth surface condition. In addition, the development level of up-to-date automated techniques for analyzing and processing earth remote sensing data allows detecting degree of ice consolidation and differentiate ice from clouds, for instance, their shadows that are clearly seen on the right hand side of the image.

Title:	Sea ice of the Arctic
Acquisition date:	22.04.2004
Sensor:	IRS, LISS

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©2005-2010 R&D Center ScanEx. All Rights Reserved.
mailto: webmaster@scanex.ru