Lake Ice Service

The Lake Ice Service for Arctic Climate and Safety is integrated into the Finnish Environment Institute’s Earth Observation service. It provides near real-time information on the ice conditions of freshwater lakes by combining satellite data — such as lake ice and water temperature products, radar and true color images — with in-situ observations from communities and authorities. This service is ideal for visualizing spatiotemporal data in map format or as statistical time series.

A screenshot of the online Lake Ice Service.

Objective

description

This service is an important tool e.g. for communities, industry and researchers, offering vital insights into ice-covered lakes and the possible changes in ice regimes. Key benefits include:

• Safety: Provide crucial information to prevent accidents related to weak ice conditions.
• Livelihoods: Supports reindeer herding, fishing, and hunting by providing accurate ice cover information.
• Tourism: Offers valuable data on ice conditions for activities like skiing, skating, swimming, snowmobiling and fishing.
• Accessibility: Informs about traveling on ice and by boat, which affects both daily life and industrial transportation.
• Climate Monitoring: Track lake ice cover as a sensitive climate change indicator, reflecting long-term changes and annual anomalies. Observations indicate that freeze-up is occurring later and break-up earlier, shortening the ice cover season.
• Research: Support studies on climate change impacts, lake ecology and biology, water quality, and methane emissions.
• Industry: Provides information for flow forecasts, which are important for planning and operations, especially in hydropower companies.

By integrating optical satellite imagery with in-situ and microwave measurements, the Lake Ice Service overcomes the limitations of optical sensors under cloud cover and polar night, providing a comprehensive source of lake ice information.

Online tool

Access the Lake Ice Service on the TARKKA portal website by the Finnish Environment Institute through this link.