Icewatch - Ice SAR Monitoring of the Northern Sea Route

Use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images from satellites is a technology which is playing an increasingly important role in operational sea ice monitoring. SAR images, with a resolution of 100 m, can distinguish different ice types and map leads, polynyas, shear zones, landfast ice, drifting ice and location of the ice edge. The SAR is the only instrument which provide high resolution images under different cloud and light conditions. In several demonstration projects the Nansen Center in Bergen and St. Petersburg have used ERS-I SAR images to monitor sea ice conditions in the Northern Sea Route from 1991 to 1995. The projects have been performed in close cooperation with icebreakers belonging to Murmansk Shipping Company. From 1995 SAR ice monitoring is established as the first joint project in earth observation between the European Space Agency and the Russian Space. The objective of the joint project is to make SAR data from ERS and ENVISAT available for Russian users of ice data on an operational basis. The project also includes a plan for a SAR receiving station in Siberia. The Northern Sea Route is the sailing route along the coast north of Russia from the Barents Sea in west to the Bering Strait in east (Fig. I). The ice conditions restrict sea transportation which requires ice class vessels as well as icebreaker assistance throughout the year. In summer there is traffic in the whole sailing route, whereas in winter it is mainly the western part which is used serving the ports on the Yenisei River. An extensive ice monitoring and forecasting service has been built up in Russia over the last 50 years with a main objective to serve the icebreaker service in the Northern Sea Route. Use of spaceborne SAR has not been a part of this service.