Lake Ice Service for Arctic Climate and Safety
Lead: Kirsikka Heinilä, Finnish Environment Institute
Lake Ice Service
The Lake Ice Service for Arctic Climate and Safety is integrated to the Finnish Environment Institute’s Earth Observation service. It provides near real-time information about the ice conditions of freshwater lakes, based on satellite imagery and in-situ information (community-based monitoring and governmental observations). It’s an excellent tool for visualizing spatiotemporal data in map format or as statistical time series.
A screenshot of the online Lake Ice Service.
OBJECTIVE
To provide near real-time information on the ice conditions of freshwater lakes.
Photo by Snowchange
DESCRIPTION
This service will provide near real-time information on the lake ice status for the middle and north Europe i.e. for areas where lakes get ice cover regularly or at least sporadically. The information on lake ice status is particularly important for communities living in the high latitude arctic or subarctic areas, as ice cover influences their daily life. This concerns livelihoods like reindeer herding and fishery, income by tourism industry (skiing, skating, swimming, fishing), shortening distances due to the ice-roads (related to easiness of everyday live, but also to the industry like transportation) and enabling access to the islands (numerous houses and summer cottages are located on the islands and weak ice conditions can temporalily disconnect the passage). And, essentially, changes in lake ice cover are related to climate change. The ice cover is an important and sensitive climate change indicator associated with monitoring of its long-term changes and yearly anomalies. According to Earth observation -based studies and in-situ measurements, freeze-up is already occurring later in the year, and break-up earlier, shortening the season of ice cover. Several models predict that global warming will continue to reduce the duration of cover and thickness of ice through the end of the 21st century in the Nordic-Baltic region. As cloud cover obscures the visibility of optical sensors to ground, there is an urgent need to develop an observing system for lake ice that combines the in situ and remote sensing based information. We will fill this gap.
Online tool
News highlights
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Jun, 24Arctic PASSION Innovation Exhibition
Arctic PASSION hosted an Innovation Exhibition at our 2024 General Assembly in Inari/Aanaar, Finland in June Read More- by: Sabrina Heerema
- Updated: 25 Jun 24
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Oct, 23Introducing Arctic PASSION's Lake Ice Service
The Finnish Environment Institute's Kirsikka Heinilä introduces the Lake Ice Service, developed for the general public who need to know lake ice extent and conditions. Read More- by: Sabrina Heerema
- Updated: 27 Oct 23
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Dec, 22Get introduced to the Lake Ice Service and give us feedback!
Recap and highlights from the webinar on Arctic PASSION's lake ice service held on November 10th, 2022 Read More- by: Oda Mulelid
- Updated: 25 Nov 22
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Nov, 22Lake Ice Service for Arctic Climate and Safety
Arctic PASSION’s lake ice service provides near real-time information about the ice conditions of freshwater lakes in the Arctic. Photo: Riku Lumiaro, SYKE Read More- by: Kirsikka Heinilä
- Updated: 04 Nov 22
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Sep, 22Lake ice information in your pocket
Get to know the Lake Ice Service tool, and listen to the current status of its development as well as our future steps towards the expanded service. Read More- by: Lisa Grosfeld
- Updated: 30 Sep 22