Sea Ice Climatic Atlas for Northern Canadian Waters 1971-2000

[Also available in PDF; 49.7 MB]

Foreword

In 1980, the first in a series of Ice Atlases was published under the title "Ice Atlas - Eastern Canadian Seabord" by W.E. Markham that presented an analysis of ice conditions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the waters east of Newfoundland and Southern Labrador. Rounding out the series of Ice Atlases were "Ice Atlas - Canadian Arctic Waterways" published in 1981 and "Ice Atlas - Hudson Bay and Approaches" published in 1988; both authored by W.E. Markham. Without a digital database available, it was a very laborious task to update such publications.

In the late 1990’s with partial funding from the Program on Energy Research & Development (PERD) the Canadian Ice Service completed the digitisation of its Weekly Regional Ice Charts collection and created a digital database to facilitate the production of climatic sea ice charts. In 2001, "Sea Ice Climatic Atlas - East Coast of Canada 1971-2000" the first of a planned series of sea ice atlases based on the digital database for the 30 year climatic period 1971-2000 was published. Now for our second atlas of this new series, we have chosen to group both the Canadian Arctic and the Hudson Bay into a single atlas. We hope that this will facilitate the understanding of climatic sea ice conditions in Northern Canadian Waters as a whole.

Richard Chagnon
Canadian Ice Service

Acknowledgements

Several people contributed to the production of this atlas and their effort and dedication should be acknowledged.

Special thanks to Mr Steve McCourt for the analysis of the digital charts and preparation of all products contained in this atlas. Mr McCourt’s contribution was also essential in all other aspects of this project to ensure a final product of excellent quality.

Brian Veale and his vast expertise of sea ice in Canadian waters for his contribution in the Ice Regime text and editing of the climate products.

Finally thanks to all past and present CIS personnel involved in the data acquisition and preparation of the CIS Weekly regional charts over all these years without whom the production of this atlas would not have been possible.