D4.1 - Lake Ice Service Readiness Report

Lake Ice Service for Arctic Climate and Safety is one of the eight pilot services of the Arctic PASSION project. The purpose of the Lake Ice Service Readiness Report is to describe the current status of the Lake Ice Service as well as the future steps towards the expanded service.

The Lake Ice Service collects lake ice information from multiple sources and visualizes the information in a format that is easy to access and understand. This information will be exploited by citizens and local communities as well as for scientific purposes. Lake ice is sensitive to intra-annual temperature fluctuations and long-term temperature trends. Climate change will likely have dramatic impacts on lake ice phenology in Arctic regions. Beside the climate change aspect, lake ice data are important regarding transport, arctic livelihood, and safety issues. Additionally, lake ice affects water quality, the lake ecology and local weather by reducing the energy exchange between water and the atmosphere. In the framework of Arctic PASSION, the first version of the Lake Ice Service is implemented in SYKE’s TARKKA+ service. This service will be further extended to cover more features to be exploited by the users. The predecessor of TARKKA+ is TARKKA, where part of the service features was developed and will be further transferred to TARKKA+.

Arctic PASSION is an innovative pan-Arctic Observation and Monitoring action that rises to the challenges of climate change facing the people living and working in the Arctic, and to European society at large. The purpose of Arctic PASSION is co-creation and implementation of a coherent, integrated Arctic observing system. This will be achieved by refining its operability, improving and extending pan-Arctic scientific and community-based monitoring systems and services, streamlining the access and interoperability of Arctic Data systems, and crucially ensuring the economic viability and sustainability of the observing system for years to come. The Arctic PASSION project is described in more detail in the project website https://arcticpassion.eu/.