Ice Drift Forecasts

The IcySea Ice Drift Forecast layer shows the predicted pathways an imaginary ice floe would drift over the next few days from a predefined starting point on the map. The distance between two points of the drift trajectory reflects a time span of 24 hours. Because ice drift forecasts are based on scientific datasets, they come with a certain level of uncertainty. This uncertainty increases with every day into the future.

Data sources

IcySea includes ice drift forecasts based on two models: A specialized ice drift model for the Arctic and a global (Arctic and Antarctic) wind forecast model.

The Arctic-wide ice drift forecast is produced by the TOPAZ5 ocean sea-ice data assimilation system. This model considers wind as well as ocean currents and other variables to forecast the ice drift for up to nine days.

The Arctic/Antarctic-wide wind-based ice drift forecasts are calculated from the ICON wind forecast model. By the so called "Nansen rule" the ice will drift with about 2% of the wind speed and deviate about 25% to the right (left) on the Northern (Southern) hemisphere. This sea ice drift dataset is based solely on wind data, and no currents or other factors are taken into account. A maximum of three forecast days are provided.

Interpretation Guidelines

Every sea ice drift trajectory consists of up to 10 points, the initial point, 0, always starts on the same map position. Each one of the other points on the map represents a prediction of where an imaginary ice floe would be in the next 1, 2, 3,…, 9 days as compared to the initial point 0. Each 24 hour time step is also illustrated by a change in color from red (initial point 0) to white (9 day forecasted position). Since forecasting uncertainty increases with time, the red-colored points representing the shorter term forecasts are more trustworthy than the whiter points.