Demonstration of operational sea-ice monitoring in the Baltic Sea with ERS-l SAR

Abstract The Northern Baltic, during normal winters, is covered by icc for several months. This severely affects the marine traffic in the area. The Finnish Board of Navigation currently operates nine icebreakers during the winter season. Since the launch of ERS-I in 1991, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images have been used as an aid for the icebreaker crew, and later also by the Ice Service. ERS-l fast delivery images are processed and displayed on specially developed work stations. The paper describes the procedures developed for handling the data, the icebreaker work station, and experiences from the three winters ERS-I SAR images have been used.