Regional ice monitoring, like weather forecasting, provides the context for a wide range of operations across a region. There can be several different types of operations taking place across the region, all requiring a basic knowledge of current ice conditions and the latest forecast. Regional ice information is typically conveyed to the offshore clients through the use of an ice chart, but this is normally augmented by text and/or voice information providing a forecast. National ice services also provide ice charts, but these are typically provided on a less frequent basis than is required by the oil and gas operator, and may be at significantly coarser spatial resolution, and so typically a custom regional ice chart will be provided from an onshore base hosting one or more ice analysts, often co-located with one or more weather forecasters. The production of ice charts depends on having adequate availability of satellite imagery. The most useful is radar imagery because this is able to be used in cloudy, foggy and dark conditions. |