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Ice Analysts Workshop June'2008

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The 8th session of the International Ice Charting Working Group (IICWG-8), held in Frascati, ESA/ESRIN, 22-26 October 2007, provided the place for most of the ice services of the Northern Hemisphere (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Russian Federation, Sweden and USA) to agree on the further actions towards on the planning and provision of the "Ice Analysts Workshop" in 2008. The workshop was initially proposed by the WMO/IOC JCOMM Services Programme Area (SPA) Coordination Group session (Exeter, UK, November 2006) and further agreed by the joint 3rd session of the JCOMM Expert Team on Sea Ice (ETSI) / 11th session of the WMO Global Digital Sea Ice Data Bank project (GDSIDB) (Geneva, Switzerland, March 2007). Provision of such workshop in 2008 is driven by a number of needs, in particular by necessities:

• to provide most efficient and harmonized ice services within the new Arctic METAREAs and Maritime Safety Information, including sea ice, through the GMDSS for the new routes in the Arctic due to recent opening of Arctic ice cover and

• to enhance historical understandability of the sea ice variations based on the ice charts as the longest standard record of sea ice conditions.

In this regards it was agreed on the following subjects:

1. Workshop aim, themes and agenda

Themes and preliminary agenda will be developed jointly by the JCOMM ETSI (chair and members), GCOS SST&SI (chair and members), GHRSST-PP and hosting agency (Germany).

The prime aim of the workshop should be assessment of differences of current practices of ice analysis and charting at the level of national ice services and accuracies of ice charts to meet both operational and climate analysis needs. To help achieving this goal, the workshop will encompass two parts: (1) case studies presentation/discussion from different Ice Services on the techniques used in analyzing imagery and preparing ice charts in order to exchange views and techniques and learn different practices from different Ice Services; and (2) breakout expert groups by region (Arctic, Antarctic and Baltic) to analyze imagery and prepare ice charts during the workshop in order to develop a methodology to harmonize the analysis process.

It is proposed agenda items of the workshop will cover:

• online comparison of results of case studies carried out by the national analysts before and during the workshop; to this effect 2 sets of scenes based on SAR/visible/IR images and covering typical ice conditions in the Arctic (FY/MY ice during freeze-up, winter and summer melt), Baltic Sea ice and Antarctic ice will be selected by the ETSI and IICWG experts (deadline – mid March 2008), so that the 1st set will be distributed and analyzed by the ice analysts before the workshop and the 2nd set will be distributed and analyzed at the moment of the workshop; results of analysis of the same imagery but by different analysts in a form of ice charts will be the background information for intercomparison;

• online comparison of the differences in presentation of ice parameters on selected 5 series of ice charts which were routinely compiled by the national ice services during the past winter season 2007-2008 (diagnosis of ice conditions in Canadian Arctic CIS/NIC, Eurasian Arctic by AARI/met.no/NIC, Greenland waters by NIC/DMI, Baltic Sea by BSIS/NIC, Antarctic by AARI/NIC/SMARA); series will be selected by the ETSI and IICWG experts (deadline – end March 2008);

• online assessment of sea ice parameters uncertainties for routine ice charts from national ice services;

• use of historical ice charts of the Baltic as a case study for uncertainties in climatological ice data; charts issued from different agencies for the same day in different decades (1950's to 2000's) will be made available before the workshop for comparisons; during the workshop the differences will be found and possible temporal changes and the causes of the differences will be discussed;

• analysis of intercomparison statistics based assessed on a basis of historical ice charts for XX century from the GDSIDB archive; statistics will be prepared by the ETSI chair together with NSIDC experts and presented for discussion during the the workshop;

• kick-off for the process of practices harmonization, including that for the formats, e.g. SIGRID-3;

• means of verification of informational products based on passive microwave imagery;

• trigger discussion on “Sea Ice Nomenclature” update and appropriate amendments to sea ice codes and ice charting presentation standards.

The working process including case studies presentation, breakout and plenary sessions will be coordinated both by the ETSI chair and host ice service head as well as by an invited ice expert – workshop Coordinator, the latter being also responsible for compilation of the case studies and needed documentation and putting together the Workshop proceedings. Coordinator will be chosen by ETSI based on proposals by the ice services (mid February 2008).

Deadline for submission of documentation, case studies, ice charts and imagery is mid-April 2008. Hosting ice service will be providing ftp-access to the server for downloading and uploading needed information.

2. Pre-workshop logistics

Based on the on the information available in the publication WMO-No.574 the ETSI chair and WMO Secretariat for JCOMM will prepare invitations which will be sent with enclosed preliminary agenda to Permanent Representative with WMO with copies to ice services and centers dealing with operational sea ice information by January 2008. Based on workshop themes and agenda the ice services and centers will decide on presentation which most likely will be 1-2 senior ice analysts for operational services. It is expected that ice services from both Northern and Southern hemispheres, regional and hemispheric, will be present at workshop (Argentina, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation, Sweden USA). Potential attendees from other meteorological services may include Australia, New Zealand, UK etc. Total number of participants is expected to be around 20-25 experts including operational analysts, climatologists, ETSI chair, experts from GCOS, GHRSST-PP, NSIDC and WMO Secretariat.

3. Workshop organizers, time and place

4. Funding and financial support

Funding for travel and accommodation expenses will be normally covered by participating ice services and centers. Local facilities will be mostly free. Financial assistance by the WMO and the IOC will not be generally available to support participation in this workshop. On an exceptional basis, however, some limited funding may be available to support participants from the Southern hemisphere and prepare proceedings of the workshop. It is proposed to seek additional financial support from the Space Agencies (CSA, NASA, ESA) and national ice services to cover working efforts of an invited workshop coordinator and publication of the workshop proceedings in hardcopy format as well as potential expenses for provision of case studies based on satellite imagery We should expect that other financial requests may arise from GCOS and GHRSST sides before finalization of agenda.

5. Results of the workshop

It is expected that results of this workshop will be compiled in a form of a JCOMM Technical publication covering:

• workshop venue;

• introduction on historical aspects of ice charting;

• assessment of errors and uncertainties in historical ice charts of the Baltic and what this implies for climatological ice estimates also in polar regions.

• state-of-art in the field of ice diagnosis in the national ice services based on workshop presentations;

• analysis of statistics on intercomparison of long-term series of ice charts from different ice services;

• 'satellite imagery analysis' case study and 'past season ice charts' case study summaries for a set of typical ice conditions (e.g. 5-6 series of scenes including Arctic MY winter, Arctic FY winter, freeze-up, melting period, fast ice area, Antarctic ice);

• analysis of sea ice parameters uncertainties on sea ice charts further effecting ice charts assimilation in numerical forecasting and climatic analysis;

• proposals for practices harmonization, including coding and presentation schemes;

• proposals for verification of informational products based on passive microwave imagery.

Workshop Coordinator will be responsible for putting together the workshop proceedings with support form the WMO Secretariat and ETSI chair.

6. Teleconferences and workshop web-site

The main workshop web-site is at JCOMM SPA web-site at:
http://www.jcomm-services.org/Ice-Analysts-Workshop-June-2008.html

Local logistics will be provided at the BSIS web-site at:
http://bsis.eisdienst.de/IceWorkshop/LocalInformation.html and
http://www.bsis-ice.de/IceWorkshop/LocalInformation.html

7. Organizing Committee

(Last Updated: 21-12-2007)