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MEDIUM RESOLUTION ICE CHARTS

		Danish Meteorological Institute
	To access this service, please click here.

On a weekly basis, the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) provides medium resolution ice charts covering the Greenland Waters. The charts are published on Mondays using data from the last 36 hours. Primary end users include Royal Arctic Line, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Icelandic Meteorological Office, National Ice Center and the Admiral Danish Fleet. The primary intended uses of the charts are:

1. Aid in the planning of operational activities
2. Provide general information to the public
3. Input to scientific studies, e.g. climate variability studies
4. Independent validation of automatic products
5. Input to other national ice services

The chart production is executed using the operational ice charting system at DMI. Each single ice chart is constructed by manual visual interpretation of a large amount of satellite data by experienced ice analysts. Input satellite data primary consists of:

• Global mode and wide swath SAR data from ENVISAT and RADARSAT
• Optical and IR temperature AVHRR data from NOAA and later METOP
• Passive microwave data from DMSP SSM/I

Gathering and preprocessing of satellite data is carried out by the DMI operational production system.

In addition to data from satellites, information about the atmospheric and oceanographic state is used by the ice analysts to aid interpretation. The ice charts contains the following information:

• Sea ice total concentration (in tenths), and partial concentrations of different ice types
• Sea ice stage of development, i.e. ice thickness, age, new-ice type formed under different dynamic conditions: pancake or nilas ice
• Sea ice floe size, the distribution is indicated in different size categories
• Information about primary satellite source for each polygon, if SAR data cover the area this will be the primary source
• Quality indicator for each polygon, difficult to interpret or coarse resolution data are given higher uncertainty
• Metadata, time-date, map projection etc. info

The ice chart below illustrates the end product.

Greenland Medium Resolution Ice Chart (May 27, 2007) - Colour Code

End Users

National Snow and Ice Data Center
Royal Arctic Line
Icelandic Meteorological Office
National Ice Center
Admiral Danish Fleet

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