National Ice Center

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National Ice Center
The Nations and the DODs Single Inter-agency
for Operational Ice Analysis and Forecasting
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National Ice Center History
1950s - Navy commenced global sea ice
services 1956 - National Weather Bureau and
U.S. Navy Fleet Weather Central
collocated in Suitland (FOB 4) 1960s - NOAA
commenced Alaskan Great Lakes advisories 1976
- Navy/NOAA Joint Ice Center formed Navy-NOAA
MOA 1995 - National Ice Center formed - Navy,
NOAA, U.S. Coast Guard MOA as Annex to
Navy-NOAA Umbrella MOA Inter-agency
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NATIONAL ICE CENTER/NAVAL ICE CENTER
NOAA
National Ice Center
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NIC Customers
NIC CUSTOMER BASE
DOD SUBFORCE INTEL (ONI/N23) ARMY/AIR
FORCE MARINE CORP METOC/OTSR Army Corps
Eng PENTAGON Camp David/SITE R
NOAA NWSFOs NWS MODELS NMFS NSIDC NCDC NODC NGDC
Public Interest
DHS/USCG ICEBREAKERS - Polar (CGHQ) - Great
Lakes (D9) - Ches/Del Bays (D5) SECURITY MARINE
SAFETY IIP (Mar -Aug)
OTHER NSF NASA RESEARCH ACADEMIA INDUSTRY INTE
RNATIONAL
Commercial users(NIC products on WWW) Oil,
Transportation, Tourism, Fishing Fleets, Minerals
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Sea Ice Productsthe NIC Process
QuickSCAT
Foreign Ice Charts
DMSP OLS
Models/ PIPS 2.0 Gerson
AVHRR
NIC Ice chart
80-90 GB data per day
Ice Recon
RADARSAT
DMSP SSM/I
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Annotated Imagery Products
Ice Drift 20-30 NM/Week
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Tailored Support
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NIC Ice Chart with Intl Color Code
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Automated Ice Edge

• Final Product Comprised of
• SSMI NASA Team II
• QuikScat Integrated along with Imagery
• Value-added ice edge from NIC analyst (if
  available)
• Backfill of SSMI ice concentrations

Automated chart (SSM/I J019) compared to the
analyst derived chart for the same day.
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North American Ice Service
National Ice Center and Canadian Ice Service
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Questions?
NOAA Satellite Operations Facility Opening
September 2005