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Environment Characterization

Accurate characterization of the ice environment within an operational area supports vessel and marine/seabed infrastructure design, and assists operators in identifying optimal operational windows and developing ice
management plans that minimize downtime and limit operational risk. C-CORE provides both current and historical information to define ice regimes.

The ice environment is understood based on imagery from satellite and aircraft-borne sensors, along with in-situ measurement and field observations, which detail iceberg location, size, shape and areal density, as well as sea ice concentration, type and floe size.

In areas where infrastructure like pipelines and subsea wellheads are being considered, C-CORE also brings to bear its geotechnical expertise in interpretation of seabed data to determine potential for, frequency of, and depth of ice keel scour.

Seasonal ice/iceberg density charts provide a statistical representation of the average ice coverage in a specified area during a given time period. These charts are particularly useful for planning operations in frontier areas where little information is available on seasonal ice/iceberg coverage and frequency; they are typically derived from hundreds of historical satellite images of the area of interest and allow operators to anticipate what kind of ice and iceberg intrusion to expect – where, when and how often.

C-CORE participated in a comprehensive metocean study for Canada’s East Coast. The objectives of the study are to:

  • Characterize regional metocean conditions (winds, waves, currents, fog, vessel icing, pack ice, icebergs, ice islands, sea surface temperature) in the specified area of interest, and the influence of environmental changes on such conditions; and
  • Compare these conditions to those in other analogous internationally-explored regions (i.e., east and west Greenland, North Sea, Barents Sea, Canadian Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, Kara Sea, Caspian Sea, Sakhalin Island, and Rockall, as well as the Grand Banks and Orphan Basin).

Read the full study here.