A preliminary assessment of the Polar Ice Prediction System

Author

Van Woert, Michael L. ; Meier, Walter ; Zou, Cheng-Zhi ; Beesley, Tony ; Hovey, Phil ; Bertoia, Cheryl

Author_Institution

Nat. Ice Center, Washington, DC, USA

Volume

1

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

174

Abstract

The National Ice Center relies upon a coupled ocean/ice model called the Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS) to provide guidance for its 1-7 day sea ice forecasts. Here we present results on the forecast skill of this system for the highly variable month of May 2000. In this study we use a "threat index" patterned after methodologies used for tornado forecasting to assess changes in ice concentration. Specifically, the question was asked: does PIPS correctly forecast ice-free (C<15%) and ice-covered (C>15%) regions? SSMA satellite data and other remotely sensed products are used to establish the skill score. In contrast to persistence, which has a skill of only 40-50%, it was found that PIPS correctly forecasts these situations ~90% of the time

Keywords

oceanographic regions; oceanographic techniques; sea ice; AD 2000 05; May 2000; National Ice Center; PIPS; Polar Ice Prediction System; coupled ocean/ice model; forecast skill; ice concentration; ice forecasts; ice-covered regions; ice-free regions; remotely sensed products; skill score; threat index; Atmospheric modeling; Databases; Meteorology; Ocean temperature; Oceanographic techniques; Predictive models; Satellites; Sea ice; Tornadoes; Weather forecasting;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2001. IGARSS '01. IEEE 2001 International

Conference_Location

Sydney, NSW

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7031-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2001.976093

Filename

976093