Arctic GIS Workshop Poster Abstract

22-24 January 2001
Bell Harbor International Conference Center
Seattle, Washington

Alaska Sea Ice Atlas

William J. Lee and Orson P. Smith*
School of Engineering, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Drive Anchorage, AK 99508-8054, Phone: 907/786-1910, Fax: 907/786-1079, afops@uaa.alaska.edu

University of Alaska Anchorage and Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory specialists are preparing a GIS-based atlas of Alaska ice conditions with a view toward risk assessment for navigation and mineral developments. The US Minerals Management Service, the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, the University of Alaska Natural Resources Fund, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, and Cominco-Alaska are sponsoring the project. All ice-covered Federal Outer Continental Shelf and coastal waters of Alaska are being mapped. The primary source of ice data is the US National Ice Center archive of weekly average ice conditions. Ice information from other sources, such as the National Weather Service and the Canadian Ice Service, will be applied to fill in gaps and to verify NIC data. Equivalent information for Cook Inlet, Alaska, currently being prepared under separate contract, will be included. Verbal history will be collected through interviews of long-time residents of the Alaska coast and applied to verify measured data and statistics. The GIS database will allow users to view a statistical average over a broad area, a time series of conditions at a point, or an individual historical ice report. Meteorological data related to ice growth, behavior, deformation, and decay will be incorporated in the GIS database. Parameters to be incorporated include air temperature, freezing and thawing degree-days, sea surface temperature, and wind speed and direction. Historic isobaric maps will be applied to hindcast surface winds and wind stress divergence over ice as an index of ice compression, the primary cause of ridge formation. A chapter will portray multi-year cycles of Arctic climate. Final products will include an executable GIS on CD-ROM and on the World Wide Web.