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, Russia
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 structures, 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.
- 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 Sea.
- 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.
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