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Sea ice information has traditionally been associated with Manual Ice Charts, however the demand for accurate forecasts is increasing. This study presents an improved operational forecast system for the Arctic sea ice focusing on the Greenlandic waters. In addition, we present different observational sea ice products and conduct inter-comparisons. First, a re-analysis forced by ERA5 from 2000 to 2021 is evaluated to ensure that the forecast system is stable over time and to provide statistics for the users. The output is similar to the initial conditions for a forecast. Secondly, the sea ice forecast system is tested and evaluated based on two re-forecasts forced by the high resolution ECMWF-HRES forecast for the period from January 2019 to September 2021. Both the re-analysis and the re-forecasts include assimilation of sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations. We validate the re-analysis and the re-forecast systems for sea ice concentration against different remotely sensed observational products by computing the Integrated Ice Edge Error metric at the initial conditions of each system. The results reveal that the re-analysis and the re-forecast perform well. However, the summertime retreat of sea ice near the western Greenlandic coast seems to be delayed a few days compared with the observations. Importantly, part of the bias associated with the model representation of the sea ice edge is associated with the observational errors due to limitations in the passive microwave product in summertime and also near the coast. An inter-comparison of the observational sea ice products suggests that the model performance could be improved by assimilation of sea ice concentrations derived from a newly-developed automated sea ice product. In addition, analysis of persistence shows that the re-forecast has better skill than the persistence forecast for the vast majority of the time.

Presented at the Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval & Maritime Operations (4th), June 20-22, 2011, Washington, DC.

The prime objective is to define and characterize the various coastal environments in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The research, Hhich utilizes both secondary source information and actual field observations, takes into account coastal morphology, beach profile, sediment types, sea ice conditions, tidal range, depth of the frost table and wave energy. From a total of twelve coastal divisions based on the criteria of coastal morphology, tidal conditions and length of open water season, five have been chosen as t he basic coastal environ ments of the Arctic Archipelago. They are as follows: the Arctic Coastal Plain, the Ice Shelf, the Fiord environment, the High Straight coastal environment, and the Ridge and Valley coastal environment. Field observations within the last three environments provided additional evidence for the divisions and observations on the beach and nearshore characteristics at five selected locations., Master of Science (MSc)