Destination Earth Sea Ice Decision Enhancement

Ships operating in the polar regions encounter hazards that present elevated levels of risk and more severe consequences when accidents occur.

The DESIDE project will utilize Destination Earth system capabilities and data to provide comprehensive sea ice and related information for policy and operational decision makers in the Baltic Sea, European Arctic Ocean, and other polar regions.

Benefits to polar operations and society will include:

Increased Safety:
Accurate information supports strategic and tactical decision-making, enhancing safety of life and property.

Pollution Reduction:
Efficient route optimization minimizes fuel consumption and emissions.

Protection of Sensitive Environmental Areas:
Better forecasts can help policymakers protect environmentally sensitive areas affected by changing polar conditions.

Objectives

Aggregating diverse information sources to provide common products across jurisdictional boundaries.

Producing new forecast products to improve decision-making by users.

Customizing delivery of products to different user communities based on their needs.

Drivers

Regulatory Compliance

Deliver short and medium-term forecasts of ice, meteorological, and ocean conditions, meeting the requirements of the IMO Polar Code.

Climate Change Effects

Provide long-term forecasts on changing ice and other conditions, enabling planning and policy development for the fishing, tourism, research, and oil and gas industries.

Use Cases

Sea Ice Climate Indicators

Integrated dataset combining sea ice climate indicators based on observations (e.g. EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice SAF) and climate model projections. These indicators should be available pan-Arctic as well as regionally. Accompanying this will be a web service allowing users to interactively play with various parameters. The combination of observed and projected indicators will help establish trust in projections. This web service can be integrated into dashboards which AMAP is developing.

Arctic and Baltic Sea Voyages

Provide navigation-relevant, high temporal and spatial resolution sea ice information products to ice-going ships in the Arctic and Baltic Sea. The data needs to be delivered in an easy-to-use user-friendly way which provides interpretation help and allows for easy decision-making even without expert sea ice knowledge. Due to the dynamic nature of moving sea ice, forecasts of the variable conditions are oftentimes mission-critical as well.

Decision Support Levels

The Use Case will demonstrate the added value of the DestinE system in supporting policy and decision making at three levels within the context of polar operations:

Execution support:
Supporting ships needing to avoid or navigate through sea ice.

Planning support:
Supporting ship operators in planning polar voyages, guided by the information requirements of the IMO Polar Code.

Strategy and policy support:
Supporting organizations and policy analysts wanting to assess the impact of climate change on future decisions regarding polar operations.

Workflow

Data Ingestion:
Collect past, current, and forecasted information on sea ice, snow thickness, icebergs, ocean currents and waves, wind, temperature, visibility, and Sentinel-1 imagery from DESP/DestinE.

Data Processing, Modeling, and Analysis:
Use models, machine learning, and algorithms to process data for different user communities.

Information Dissemination:
Through decision support platforms.

Information Product Generation:
Create short, medium, and long-term sea ice charts, risk profiles, and route optimization suggestions for better decision-making.