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HIGH-RESOLUTION ICE CHARTS
The high-resolution ice charts are provided
on a weekly basis with a focus on the Svalbard area and are used primarily
for marine safety and environmental research. Primary end users include
ships operating in the waters around Svalbard and Norwegian Polar Institute
doing habitat monitoring of polar bears. Other areas in the European
and Russian Arctic can be covered on request.
The ice charts are based on SAR images
from Envisat or Radarsat and analyzed into a colour coded ice concentration
chart according to the WMO code. The normalized and gray tone enhanced
images are especially well suited for detecting medium-scale features
and large-scale textures.
The ice chart production is done during
working hours, but has 24-hour internal maintenance support and customer
support service.
High Resolution Ice Chart (April 29, 2003)

The European Arctic
Expanding interest for exploiting oil
and gas fields further north and east will increase the need for sea
ice information both for construction, marine safety and environmental
reasons. The Norwegian oil and gas company, Statoil, is seeking to participate
in the Stockmann field west of Novaja Semlja.
Traffic of oil tankers from Russian waters
along the Norwegian coast is thought to increase extensively in the
coming years. There are considerable benefits if an oil spill can be
avoided, or the effects of an oil spill decreased as a result of improved
information.
As this service evolves, new user groups
in the European Arctic will be contacted to match changing requirements
and user needs.
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