Summary of Working Paper No. 131-1999

I.4.2 “Development of the Databases on Natural Conditions of Navigation along the NSR”

By S. Brestkin, V. Karklin et al., Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St.Petersburg, Russia.

Based on the databases available at the AARI, a secondary database under the project was created. It can be used for updating the estimates of probability of some or other navigation conditions along the Northern Sea Route obtained from the Global Sea-Ice Data Bank.

The aims of the Project are as follows:

1. Development of the available AARI databases and creation on their basis a secondary database that may be potentially prepared for remote access for INSROP participants in the future

2. Creation of reference tables containing the probabilistic characteristics of navigation conditions along the NSR.

The following databases were used:

ice observations from ships of opportunity and special shipborne ice observations;

discontinuities in the ice cover;

ice pressures in the ice cover.

The aforementioned databases were developed in the following directions:

supplementing the databases with initial information;

database conversion to the Relational DBMS “Oracle 7” that creates the conditions for client-server operation mode.

The reference tables contain monthly estimates of the frequency of occurrence of ranges of the following ice characteristics:

ice concentration;

ice thickness (by age gradations);

modal orientation and specific length of discontinuities in the ice cover;

ice pressure;

dimensions of major polynyas;

dates of landfast ice breakup;

dates of stable ice formation; and

dates of ice reaching 20-25 and 50 cm thickness.