Real-Time Sea Ice Detection from Coastal Radars

3rd Ice Analyst Workshop Tuomas Niskanen14-18 of June, 2011 Oceanographic ServicesCopenhagen, Denmark Finnish Meteorological Institute

Coastal radars are part of an existing VTS network

VTS = Vessel Traffic Service

20 to 30 non-military fixed coastal radars along the Finnish coast

The radars are designed for observing targets

Movements of ice are noise which is normally filtered out

With an external device, the filtered signal can be processed in order to get movements of ice out

Background

Hailuoto

Tankar

ShipSensorNet project in 2008 Founded by TEKES (Finnish Funding Agency

for Technology and Innovation) External signal capturing device by

ImageSoft Oy Ice movements can be brought out from

processed filtered signal

The external device can be installed into radars Vessels, coastal radar stations, etc.

The technology has been in use RV Aranda Icebreaker Otso Hailuoto, Raahe and Tankar

Background

Coastal radars currently used for sea ice monitoring

BACKGROUNDRadarSat-2 image on 10th of Feb 2011

TANKAR

HAILUOTO

COASTAL RADARS•TERMA 9 Ghz•X-band•Antenna height

• Hailuoto: 30.2 m• Tankar: 37.8 m

1

Satellite SAR Image vs.

Coastal radar Image

Data flow

Image capturing device

Image capturing device

Coastal radar

Image post processing at FMI’s server

Image post processing at FMI’s server

Via 3G mobile

link

Via 3G mobile

link

Ice ServiceIce Service

Scientific databaseScientific database

Future customers

Future customers

AdvantagesSatellite

Strength: covers large area at one pass

Weakness: passes same area once in 1-2 days

Coastal radar Strength: covers certain area every

2 seconds Weakness: maximum coverage

approximately 30 km * 30 km

Advantage of coastal radar images and animations

Useful tool for ice forecasting and charting when there are no satellite images available

RadarSat-2 Image Coastal Radar Image

Area coverage

Ice motion, divergence and rotation determined from consecutive images

IMAGEINTERVAL 2 secSIZE 30 km

ROTATIONred = clocwiseblue = anticlocwise

DIVERGENCEred = closingblue = opening

Coastal radars in operational use at FMI

Today at Finnish Ice Service•Animation is created with 2 minutes interval•Length of animation is 2 days•In daily operational use since Jan 2011•Several other operational and research options

Coastal radars in operational use at FMI

Future plans•More image capturing devices need to be installed

• One will be installed to the Quark for winter 2011-12• In the future a mosaic of several devices?

•Different animations (divergence, rotation)?•Colorization of black-white images?

• can bring out more details from ice field