Disko Bay ocean and sea ice forecast

The maritime industry continues to expand in the waters around Greenland. Apart from fisheries, which by far is the most important income for Greenland, another important element is transportation of goods and tourist, which in many locations are dependent on the conditions at sea. During the last two winters (2022 and 2023) severe sea ice conditions have been seen in Disko Bay. Especially in 2022, there were discussions on whether or not to fly in supplies instead of using the usual transportation on the ocean. A trustworthy high-resolution forecast of ocean and sea ice conditions could have remedied this decision.

Currently automated retrievals of observations from remote sensing and forecast model are doing a reasonable job when describing the current conditions and forecasting the short-term offshore conditions, however users are often interested in near shore coastal areas, where resolution matters. The near coastal environment is often not well resolved in Arctic/global models forecast models.

This study aim at developing a high-resolution (sub kilometer scale) operational coastal marine forecasting system built on the shoulders of already existing Copernicus services for the area of Disko Bay on the west coast of Greenland. In combination with already, existing products such as automated and manual ice charts it will improve the warning system for the area. A side effect is that the ice service will produce more frequent ice charts for Disko Bay, which will benefit the existing Copernicus Marine Service.

The seamless physical downscaling from the Copernicus Marine Services system to the near coastal area in Disko Bay will utilize boundary conditions from the Arctic Marine forecasting system. The system will be forced by a high-resolution none hydrostatic atmospheric forecast from the Danish Meteorological Institute at 2½km resolution. The study is funded by the Copernicus user demonstration program named “COP-INNO-USER”.

This presentation will focus on the developments within the service, benefits and challenges. It will also discuss how to integrate the results into operations at the Danish Meteorological Institute.