Ice Consulting 

Canatec has undertaken hundreds of consulting studies on sea ice issues around the world for many dozens of different clients. Studies range in cost from $15,000 to $500,000, and from several days work to several years of monitoring, analyzing and reporting.

Our consulting work focuses on 3 main areas relating to sea ice:

• Identifying and locating  ice from satellite images
• Studying the movement, growth and decay of sea ice
• Gathering data on the engineering properties of sea ice and analyzing its interaction with structures

We gather data from  places never before explored, use novel instruments and carries out analysis to help design innovative operations and offshore structures. Canatec conducts such projects both for individual clients and for multiple clients working in consortia. Often, Canatec organizes and manages the consortia.

Image Analysis

Satellite images are used for research, operations planning and operations management. Canatec manages all segments of a satellite remote sensing program:

• Cataloguing of existing archive data sources, costs, and relevance to a client's current need.
• Procurement of archive scenes and programming/acquisition of new data.
• Expert interpretation of ice information from all satellite sensors (optical, infra-red, radar).

Operational ice reconnaissance coordination (advance image acquisition planning, procurement, processing, geo-rectification, same-day delivery to operations location).

Satellite pictures are a leading source of primary data on the ever-changing ice covers of the world's polar and mid-latitude seas. We have seen over the past 30 years a phenomenal increase in the number of active earth observation satellite systems and a corresponding rise in the volume of archived image data produced by those systems.

Yamal Peninsula, Russiap

CANATEC manages all segments of a satellite remote sensing program:

• Cataloguing of existing archive data sources, costs, and relevance to a client's current need.
• Procurement of archive scenes and programming/acquisition of new data.
• Expert interpretation of ice information from all satellite sensors (optical, infra-red, radar).
• Operational ice reconnaissance coordination (advance image acquisition planning, procurement, processing, geo-rectification, near real-time delivery to operations location).

Satellite systems we use include:

• QuickBird (60 cm resolution)
• IKONOS (1 m resolution)
• SPOT (5 to 10 m resolution)
• Landsat (15 m resolution)
• Envisat (all-weather, through-cloud imaging at 25 m resolution)
• European Remote Sensing satellites (ERS; all-weather, through-cloud imaging at 25 m resolution)
• Radarsat (all-weather, through-cloud imaging at 10 m to 100 m resolution)
• MOS (archived 50 m resolution data from discontinued Japanese program)
• Terra (MODIS sensor at 250 m resolution, high frequency of coverage)
• NOAA weather satellites (1,100 m resolution, high frequency of coverage)

Northwest Passage, Canada

Recent projects involving satellite image analysis have included:

• Development of real time ice information delivery systems in the Caspian Sea.
• Studies of ice regimes relative to work boat access in various zones off Sakhalin Island, Russia.
• Analysis of archive satellite data to characterize ice dynamics in the Tatar Strait and Sea of Okhotsk.
• Scoping study on impacts of climatic change on the Beaufort Sea ice regime.
• Analysis of multi-year ice floe occurrence in the Beaufort Sea based on analysis of synthetic aperture radar imagery.
• Analysis of decay and inclusion patterns of ice islands and fragments which have broken off ice shelves from Ellesmere Island and Northern Greenland.

Physical Studies

Canatec undertakes studies relating to patterns of movement, growth and decay of sea ice. This work usually involves reviewing the state of the art and analyzing data provided by the client or available from specified sources. In other cases, Canatec designs and executes field programs that gather original data. Clients for our ice physics studies use the data and analyses for optimizing routing of marine traffic, ice management planning, calculation of operations windows at specific sites, determination of ice design criteria for proposed structure, quantification of regional ice regimes, and quantification of effects of global climate change.

Although there is a generalized lessening of arctic ice cover with global climate change, sea ice conditions in certain parts of the Arctic are actually getting more severe and major disruptions to some areas are resulting in the liberation of massive ice features hitherto relatively stable, into the Arctic Ocean. These extreme ice features are ice islands, ice island fragments, multiyear ridges and multiyear hummock fields. They present extreme hazards to offshore petroleum operations and structures. Understanding their occurrence and size is of great importance to future operations. In addition, our research analyses drift forecasting and patterns of these kinds of features and other floes which can also significantly affect navigation and operations. We also study more widely distributed features such as pressure ridges, jams and thickness distribution, along with freezup and breakup patterns that mariners need to know for planning transits. This work is done by a combination of literature studies, emplacement of instruments, field measurements, satellite image interpretation and use of our proprietary software which has historical ice occurrence data from 1972.

Some of our typical projects have included:

• Review of weather and ice environments of the Pechora Sea, European Russia. li
• Study of extreme ice features in the Beaufort Sea.
• Study of drift of ice islands from Ellesmere Island (in partnership with the Canadian Ice Service)
• Analysis of historical patterns of ice occurrence to plan seismic operations in the Beaufort Se
• Analysis of historical patterns of ice occurrence to plan transit of vessels in convoy around Point Barrow Alaska
• Review of sea ice characteristics in northeast Greenland.

Engineering Properties

Canatec develops ice and environmental design criteria. Sea ice is a very complex and highly variable material. Modelling its interaction with vessels and structures is as much an art as a science. Two Canatec staff have been involved with field and numerical studies of the engineering properties of sea ice, and their interaction with structures and vessels since the early 1970s. We are expert in Monte Carlo simulations for ice load probability distribution and the operation of field studies for ice loading. For studies involving controlled laboratory experiments, we maintain close links with Memorial University and the National Research Council's Marine Dynamics Institute.

By the mid 1980s, when the offshore arctic petroleum industry largely ceased operation, Canatec personnel had carried out work on:

• Design of artificial offshore islands; breakwater design; ice loading assessments; ice/structure interaction simulations.
• Probabilistic ice load assessments; ice design statistics; ice instrumentation design; ice fracture mechanics; ice management and control studies.
• Field experiments and data collection; innovative engineering design; data analysis and interpretation; computer modelling and calibration; performance assessments; feasibility studies.
• Pipeline design and inspection services; Arctic pipeline research projects; ice keel impact and iceberg scour analysis; pipeline trenching and installation methods; pipeline trench and glory hole depths; construction project management.

Since then, little work in this field has been commissioned by the petroleum industry and ship designers until very recently and Canatec has become involved again in, starting with:

• Ship in ice performance assessments; vessel routing assessments.
• Planning for major field trials of ice-structure interaction
• Studies of ice indentation mechanics.

Molikpaq Drilling Structure, Beaufort Sea

Icebreaker in Beaufort Sea