ICEMON In A Glance
• The backbone of the ICEMON service system is the existing institutions that provide operational oceanography services in high latitudes
• Research and development work to support and upgrade the services will be conducted to build the capacity to retrieve quantitative information from new satellite data, improve modeling and forecasting skills, and for utilization of state-of-the-art information technologies, communication and end user systems.
• The services will mainly be public services that should be free-of-charge as far as possible. In addition, commercial services will be offered to users such as offshore industry which require more extensive services than the public services.
Cross policy example of benefit
•Tanker traffic between the Arctic and Europe will increase significantly in the future
- ..and so will the risk of oil pollution
- Major sources of risk of major oil spills:-Wrecked oil tankers due to weather, etc.
-Pipeline leakages
-Accidents on oil rigs
ICEMON benefits
1.Establish international platforms and interfaces for data input, and data and product distribution
• Heterogeneous data formats is a barrier for efficient exchange of data
2.Coordinated acquisition of EO data among the service providers
3.Establish an ICEMON EO data policy and price policy
ICEMON Research
•General research
- observations and interpretations of ice variability with respect to climate change and the understanding of the ocean-ice-atmosphere system
- studies of response of Arctic flora and fauna to climate and ice changes
- development of shipping conceptsforthe NSR and Baltic Sea
- investigations of the processes involved in oil spill dispersion and remediation in ice covered waters
ICEMON Infrastructure
•Flexible data ordering tool, and negotiate agreement with data/service provider for access to data
•Design for the ICEMON broker-facade system
User awareness and partnership expansion
• Promotion and training activities to
- build capacity of users to understand the strengths and limitations of information provided by th e services (awaren ess training)
- access and use of the ICEMON Service Portfolio (technical training)
- establish user confidence in the delivered ice products and services Read the rest of this entry »
Resource management policy
• Oil and gas exploration as well as marine transportation and ship traffic in the Arctic and surrounding seas will require significant improvement in ice services in coordination with existing met-ocean services
• It is of pu blic interest that th ese activities take place with a minimum risk for accidents and damage to the environment
Environment policy
• The Arctic environment is very vulnerable, and pollution, conservation of flora and fauna, climate change impact on ecosystems are areas where small disturbances can have very long-lasting impact
• Monitoring services are needed to detect changes in the environment on short and long time scale, and to support human activities to minimize the risk for negative impact on the environment
Climate policy
• Global climate change is on the political agenda. The Arctic is of particular interest because the global warming is predicted to be most pronounced in this region with many implications for sea transport, resource exploitation, construction, ecosystems, and the environment
Safety policy
• Rules and regulations for ship construction, sea transport and other operations define the need for information. This requires monitoring of met-ice-ocean variables on global scale