Methods for Ice Awareness

Space activities of Finland with focus in the Arctic

J. Pulliainen, 18 April 2018

Space topics relevant to Finnish actors

• Satellite systems for arctic applications:

• Nano-satellite and SAR constellations (optical imaging, space weather, sea ice)

• New small and medium size enterprises in Finland

• High Elliptical Orbit Imaging (weather/EO and communications highly interesting)

Possibilities to proceed with small satellites: telecom and positioning => met.

imaging and science payloads (Norway active at the moment, ESA studies)

• Arctic applications (research, development and operations):

• Sea ice, snow cover, seasonal frost and permafrost

• Navigation (Galileo), energy sector (hydro-power production), logistics

• Meteorology and climate research (including greenhouse gases and carbon balance at

the high latitudes, air pollution and emissions)

• Arctic mapping (including vegetation) & Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure

• Space Situational Awareness ( Space weather, Near Earth Objects, Space Surveillance

& Tracking)

• Sodankylä Space Campus and FMI Sodankylä Arctic Space Centre: A national asset

to be utilized for Arctic applications including Public-Private-Partnership arrangements

• Investments to Arctic Space Centre (National Satellite Data Centre) ~17 M€ during

2010-2017 2

FMI Arctic Space Centre

at Sodankylä (FMI-ASC)

Snow mass and ice cover (25 Jan. 2018)

• National Satellite Data Centre (NSDC) as a key function

• Co-operation with ESA, NASA, EUMETSAT and institutes and companies in Italy, China, Japan and USA

• Public-Private-Partnership and shared systems with Finnish R&D institutes

• Continuous monitoring of polar regions by satellites

• Atmosphere, land and sea ice

• Space weather

• Unique products on cryosphere for research and operational applications

• Reception of data from Earth Observation (EO) satellites

• Part of Collaborative Ground Segment for EU Copernicus Sentinel satellites

• Data/product archives and real-time situational awareness

18/1/2013 – COSMO-SkyMed and

the Baltic Sea Ice Chart (by FMI/J. Vainio)

Baltic Sea Ice Monitoring

• Commercial and environmental needs

• Finland is essentially an island

• ~90% of Finland’s import and export via sea routes

• Gulf of Finland is one of the most busiest marine routesfor oil transport

• Operative Service

• Availability target 99.9%

• Quasi-real-time / NRT needs

• Daily products

• Customer:

• Finnish Transport Agency

• Finnish, Swedish, Estonian Ice breakers, SMHI

• Operations:

• Fully automated processing lines at Sodankylä

• Operators and ice analysts in 2 shift

• 24/7 monitoring of the processing lines

17.1.2018

L1 processing

L2 processing

L0 processing

Ice Service

FMI Sodankylä

FMI Helsinki 24/7 monitoring

Ice analysts

S1

CSK

CMEMS

RSAT2

CSK

TSX

Data need:

• Sentinel-1 EW HH+HV pass-through

• Radarsat 2, Cosmo-Skymed, TerraSAR-X

• AOI: Baltic Sea

• Time: Nov – May

FMI Arctic Space Centre

Sodankylä GS 6

NSDC Processing

Facilities at

Sodankylä

• Customized processing of satellitedata and CAL-VAL (in situ, ground-based remote sensing)

• Long-term archiving and high speeddata delivery (10 Gbit /s)

• Open data delivery and cloudservices

• Hosting external processing linesin virtual environments

• Security/Safety standards accordingto ESA requirements

• UPS + backup generator

• Dual cooling and air-conditioning

• Fire extinguisher system

NSDC Real-Time

Satellite Data Acquisition

and Processing

Current operational (free access)

• EOS-Terra/MODIS (USA)

• EOS-Aura/OMI (USA)

• Suomi-NPP/VIIRS, OMPS (USA)

• FY-3B & FY-3C / MERSI (China)

Current operational (commercial)

• COSMO-SkyMed (Italy)

Copernicus Sentinel ground segment

(free access)

• Sentinel-1 Collaborative GS: National Mirror Site and data downlink(local reception)

• Sentinel-2/3 Collaborative GS : National Mirror Site

7

Helsinki

Sodankylä

Terra/MODIS

RGB True Color

250 m resolution

Sentinel 1 SAR Imaging

(EU Copernicus program)

• Instrument: C-Band SAR• All-weather, day and night radar

imagery for land and ocean services

• Heritage: Envisat, ERS-2• Thematic ares:

• Monitoring of Arctic sea-ice, routine sea-ice mapping

• Surveillance of the marine environment, including oil-spill monitoring

• Ship detection for maritime security

• monitoring land-surface for motion risks

• Mapping for forest, water and soil management

• Mapping to support humanitarian aid and crisis situations

• Operational system since 2014

10

Sentinel-1 SAR mosaic over the Barents and Kara Seas,

1 Mar 2015

9.3.2015 Sodankylä National Satellite Data Centre 10

COSMO-SkyMed

• Italian SAR constellation

• Dual-Use mission (commercially available)

• Four satellites:

• Sun synchronous

• Dawn-Dusk (LTDN 06:00)

• Orbit height 619 km

11

12

ICEYE: Microsatellite SAR technology

02.09.2015 14

SEA ICE

FORECASTING MODEL

CONCENTRATION

THICKNESS, RIDGES

MOTION,

COMPRESSION

ICE OBSERVATIONS

SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS

SHIP OBSERVATIONS

ICEBREAKERS

PUBLIC WWW-SITE

ICE-

CHART

WEATHER FORECAST

FMI SEA ICE FORECASTING SYSTEM

• Physical sea ice–ocean model for Kara and

Barents Seas

• NEMO 3.6 LIM3 simulates the evolution of e.g.: Sea ice thickness

Sea ice concentration

• Taking into account effects like: Ice drift

Ice growth and melt

Wind

Ocean currents and tides

• Resolution: ~4 km

• Simulation period: 1996-2015

• Conversion of simulated ice conditions to

navigation risk: Following POLARIS (defined in the Polar Code)

Result: Maps showing accessible (green) and

Non-accessible (red) regions for different

Ship types

Sea ice modelling for

shipping purposes

Sea ice concentration

Sea ice thickness

Navigation risk (POLARIS)

Improving navigation and safety in the

Arctic Ocean

17

• A major activity during the Finland’s chairmanship in

the Arctic Council

• FIN-YOPP project: provision of Near-Real-Time

situational information to vessels operating in the

Arctic:

• Sea ice/weather conditions and forecasts

A.

Satellite data reception at Sodankylä

B.

Generation of sea ice information

C.

Transmission of compressed products

TomoScand – IONOSPHERIC

TOMOGRAPHY

3D reconstruction for ionospheric electron density over Fennoscandia

3D image of electron densityBayesian statistical

inversionInput: GNSS and LEO/Beacon signals

• Support for HF-communication e.g. in Arctic

Shipping (Demo project on-going with national

funding)

• Will be integrated to ESA Space Situational

Awareness Programme during 2018-2019

• Can be upgraded to utilize Galileo signals

• CubeSats with beacons onboard enable

a more dense grid of ionospheric observations

19 Arctic Science Networking, Helsinki, August 2017

Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) missions: Examples based

on analysis by EUMETSAT

20 Arctic Science Networking, Helsinki, August 2017

Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) missions

Current geosynchronous meteorological satellites do not observe

well high latitudes due to their imaging geometry limitations

They provide essential meteorological data at mid- and low latitudes e.g. for

aviation (and weather forecasts in general)

Polar orbiting satellites improve monitoring at polar regions, but do not

provide the needed continuous monitoring

A HEO mission would solve this handicap

A system of two HEO satellites enables the continuous monitoring of all

arctic and sub-arctic areas

Applications:

Operational meteorology

Telecommunications and positioning (big problem in the Arctic)

Climate and environmental research (atmosphere, cryosphere, space

weather) can take an advantage from the improved spatio-temporal

coverage of observations

A FMI product on snow (SWE) and

Arctic sea ice conditions• EUMETSAT OSI-SAF and H-SAF

(ESA GlobSnow heritage)

• Assimilation of SSMI-S microwave

radiometer data and synoptic snow

depth observations for estimating

SWE

21

Snow and ice in the

Arctic:

Space-borne data-derived

information for climate

research and NRT-

applications

Snow Mass and Ice Cover (12 Oct. 2017-6 Dec. 2017)

Sea ice extent and

thickness using

combined ESA

SMOS microwave

radiometer and

ESA CryoSat-2

altimeter data

22

Arktisten alueiden ympäristöhavainnointia Sodankylässä / Jyri

Heilimo23

Kuva: Matias TakalaThank You for Your Attention!

COSMO-SkyMed

COSMO Product Area Size Resolutio

n

Application

ScanSAR Huge 200 x 200 km 100 m Marine/ Sea Ice

ScanSAR Wide 100 x 100 km 30 m Marine/ Sea Ice

Stripmap HIMAGE 40 x 40 km 3-5 m Land

Stripmap PingPong 30x30 km 15 m Land

Spotlight 2 10x10 km 1 m Intelligence

Sentinel-1A ja 1B (2016-)

02.09.2015 24

SAR data availability from Sodankylä

• Italian dual-use satellite constellation

• X-band – day and night capability, weather

insensitive

• Tasking and data downlink in Sodankylä –

Easier access to images, near-real time

applications, rapid response.

• 4 satellites, short revisit time, many imaging

options

• 5 possible imaging modes

• European 2 SAR satellite constellation

• C-band – day and night capability, weather

insensitive

• Local downlink at Sodankylä for near-real time

applications (e.g. ice service and oil spill

monitoring)

• Longer wave length better suitable for

environment monitoring

• Operates accoriding to High level obervation

plan

• Archive and Data dissemination to data users

Sentinel Product Area Size Resolutio

n

Application

Extra Wide Swath 200 x 200 km 100 m Marine / Sea ice

Interferometric Wide

Swath

100 x 100 km 30 m Land