Sea Ice Modeling In The Barents Sea During Sizex 89

Abstract

A major goal of the pre-ERS-1 Seasonal Ice Zone Experiment (SIZEX 89) was to collect remote sensing data as well as relevant in situ data for testing and assimilation in a sea ice forecasting model. During the experiment a sea ice model provided 1 5 day forecasts of ice concentration, ice thickness and ice velocity. The forecasts were transmitted in near real time to the experiment platfonns and were used in the day-to-day planning of the experiment, particularly during buoy deployment and various operations within the ice. After the experiment, results from real time model runs, and runs perfonned later using more realistic wind fields were compared to observations. Ice velocity field was derived from drifting buoys and SAR images. Ice edge position and ice concentration were obtained from SSM/I data, and ice thickness was measured directly at selected locations. The 1-2 day forecasts of ice drift were generally good. For longer time periods the forecasts were more unreliable mainly due to lower quality of the wind forecast.