Canatec proposes a Joint Industry Project to study drift and decay of the Petermann Ice Island.
A 64 km sq piece of the Petermann Ice Island is drifting south along the Labrador coast. It could reach the Strait of Belle Isle sometime between August and October, and enter Newfoundland offshore petroleum lease areas between August and February next year. Its enormous area means it could surpass the maximum iceberg load design criterion for fixed petroleum structures, and drift much farther south into shipping lanes than normal icebergs before melting. In addition, as it decays in more southerly latitudes, it will liberate a swarm of very large fragments, further augmenting the hazard. As it has relatively low draft (about 50 m), it presents a different hazard profile than very large icebergs which tend to have much deeper keels and ground in deep water.
Ice islands are rare in Baffin Bay and the East Coast offshore. However with climate change, the numbers of such features could increase. It is important to study in much more detail the patterns of drift and decay of this particular ice island, as well as monitor more closely the nature of the hazard it poses.
From recent and ongoing studies of Ice Islands in the Beaufort Sea carried out with several groups of petroleum companies and government agencies, Canatec has developed a great deal of knowledge about their process of drift and decay, optimum imaging techniques, deployment of drift tracking instruments, drift forecasting and probabilistic impact analysis. One ongoing JIP is now in the phase of studying in detail an ice island drifting through the Beaufort lease areas, in terms of its breakup, generation of fragment swarms and clustering of these swarms. The Petermann feature is technically not an ice island but a large tabular iceberg, but the same hazard management considerations and analytical techniques will apply in both cases.
This feature is now being monitored by the CIS, but not at the level of detail and diligence that is warranted. A single tracking beacon on this feature is generating a track. However, the beacon is using Argos satellite telemetry which means the data have far too little resolution to be useful for detailed velocity analyses. If the beacon were to fail, the main feature could easily be spotted from present imaging, but not as it begins to break up. Already there are ice island fragments noted by CIS that are strung out along the Labrador coast, 5 of which are well downdrift of the main feature. There are most likely many more which are too small to be seen by the current imaging resolution. Much higher satellite image resolution is required to spot these smaller, but still hazardous fragments. More frequent, regular imaging and detailed analysis of the images is needed to better understand and predict the processes of decay and clustering of fragments.
Therefore, Canatec proposes a JIP that will deploy more tracking beacons on this feature and its main fragments. The beacons will be Iridium- based, with spatial resolution an order of magnitude better, permitting velocity analyses detailed enough for proper hazard assessment. In addition, we will take frequent and much higher resolution RadarSat imagery (FineQuad and UltraFine) of the feature and the fragment swarm as it develops, and fully analyze their processes of drift and decay as they move south, until all the fragments finally disintegrate below hazard threshold. To do this work, we will organize the JIP and manage the deployments, imaging, analysis and reporting, in the same way we have been doing for the Beaufort Ice Island JIPs over the past 4 years.
If your company is interested in this JIP, Canatec will work up a detailed budget and research proposal and start bringing the group together. For further information, contact Dr. Scott Tiffin at +1 403 228 0962 in Calgary, or email scott_tiffin@canatec.ca.
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