An accurate assessment of ice conditions is essential for the safe and reliable planning of operations and the design of offshore structures in ice covered waters, in both Arctic and sub-Arctic locales. This includes mean and median conditions and extremes, as driven by seasonal and inter-annual variability. Parameters of importance to design include ice type, ice concentration by type, extreme ice feature dimensions (e.g., diameter and thickness of multiyear ice floes), ice velocity, ice season length and others, as described in the industry standard: ISO 19906[1]. Historically, data to define these parameters and their probability distribution functions have been derived from field measurements with support from earth observation. There is now an opportunity for satellite earth observation to play an enhanced role in establishing these design parameters and to ultimately enhance the probabilistic design practice described in ISO 19906. Benefits include a more accurate assessment of ice conditions, due to higher spatial and temporal coverage as compared to field measurements, faster data collection due to the ability to draw upon decadal archives of satellite imagery, simplification of the data acquisition process due to reduced reliance on logistical support for field activities, and keeping people out of harm's way [2]. Archives of earth observation data now exist which extend back years and even decades, depending on the type of data required, providing in some cases temporal coverage that may be considered representative of recent climatological conditions, and in some cases sampling extreme ice conditions.

There are now excellent archives of synthetic aperture radar available to carry out studies of design parameters for offshore structures including from ESA (above) and MDA (below).