Met-Ocean Services by FMI for Ice Management and Shipping in Ice

Abstract

Abstract Shipping in sea ice and Ice Management (IM) encounter a number of challenges, starting from assessment of climatological conditions to critical tactical decision-making. The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) holds a broad field of expertise with over a century of experience in sea ice and weather services in harsh winter conditions. Close collaboration with the Baltic Sea icebreaking management, which has evolved and been honed for optimal winter navigation, has brought up a hands-on feel for operation in ice-covered seas. Through high-level research robust know-how of operating in Arctic conditions with its demanding technical requirements has been built up. Arctic marine and offshore operations still have critical challenges to face. In IM for instance, the IM team needs to deal with difficult cases like rapid changes and reversals in ice drift, risk identification in the pack ice field and evaluation of the ice management vessel capacity. FMI has developed real-time, high-resolution and fast update rate approaches to ice monitoring. The refined data products include 1) EO SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) classification, 2) enhanced sea ice property extraction from marine radar data, 3) robust weather observations in Arctic conditions, 4) ice drift and ice compression forecasting, 5) ice drifters, 6) instant combination of any of the earlier. By merging the multiple fields of expertise to operational products, FMI creates tailored service entities with high operational comfort. Easy and intuitive usage and fast and smooth data transfer are important factors.