Friday, December 24, 2010

Sea Ice Climate Atlas - Northern Canadian Waters

Sea Ice Climatic Atlas

Northern Canadian Waters

[Also available in PDF; 49.7 MB]

Foreword

In 1980, the first in a series of Ice Atlases was published under the title "Ice Atlas - Eastern Canadian Seabord" by W.E. Markham that presented an analysis of ice conditions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the waters east of Newfoundland and Southern Labrador. Rounding out the series of Ice Atlases were "Ice Atlas - Canadian Arctic Waterways" published in 1981 and "Ice Atlas - Hudson Bay and Approaches" published in 1988; both authored by W.E. Markham. Without a digital database available, it was a very laborious task to update such publications.
In the late 1990’s with partial funding from the Program on Energy Research & Development (PERD) the Canadian Ice Service completed the digitisation of its Weekly Regional Ice Charts collection and created a digital database to facilitate the production of climatic sea ice charts. In 2001, "Sea Ice Climatic Atlas - East Coast of Canada 1971-2000" the first of a planned series of sea ice atlases based on the digital database for the 30 year climatic period 1971-2000 was published. Now for our second atlas of this new series, we have chosen to group both the Canadian Arctic and the Hudson Bay into a single atlas. We hope that this will facilitate the understanding of climatic sea ice conditions in Northern Canadian Waters as a whole.
Richard Chagnon
Canadian Ice Service

NOTE: THERE HAS BEEN MORE CHANGES IN THE LAST THREE YEARS THAN THE PAST 30 YEARS.


Average dates of break-up for Northern Canadian waters from 1971 to 2000.
Average dates of freeze-up for Northern Canadian waters from 1971 to 2000.
Map illustrating the bathymetry of the Arctic
Map illustrating the general water currents of the Arctic
Weekly Ice Coverage bargraph for the Northwest Passage
Historical Total Accumulated Ice Coverage bargraph for the Northwest Passage


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