1. Ice Chart Colour Standard Proposal International Ice Charting Working Group November 2001 John Falkingham - Canadian Ice Service

2. Process to Date Ice services asked to provide colour proposals from which a short list of 6 options was prepared Ice services voted on these alternatives –3 options were similar and all ranked equally high Ice Services prepared sample ice charts for each of these 3 options Following proposal is based on these samples considering comments provided by ice service experts

3. Some Basic Principles Majority said we should have only one international standard colour code and that it should be based on total concentration –proposal has a minor variation on this Colour code should be simple; all colours are acceptable Colours must be distinguishable even when produced on different media

4. Open Water (<1 tenth ice) 1-3 tenths ice 4-6 tenths ice 7-8 tenths ice Ice Free 255-255-255 150-200-255 000-255-000 255-255-000 255-150-050 9-10 tenths ice Fast Ice 150-150-150 255-000-000 New ice, dark nilas (If Total Concentration > 8/10) Light nilas, grey ice (If Total Concentration > 8/10) 255-200-255 255-100-255 Colour Standard Proposal Colour is based on Total Ice Concentration Only except for Young Ice on Leads

5. Finland

6. Canada

7. Russia

8. Danish Meteorological Institute

9. U.S. National Ice Center

10. Some Problems Proposed colour standard is not based on total concentration alone –violet colour for re-frozen leads violates this principle –clear identification of re-frozen leads is important to Baltic operators (similar issue exists for Gulf of St Lawrence) Is this a deal breaker or is there a compromise possible?

11. Examples Finland

12. Examples NIC

13. Some Problems (cont) Proposed colour standard does not handle Arctic conditions well –9+/10 concentration is predominant –differentiation of ice types is important particularly Multi-Year vs First Year Solutions? –additional colour for Multi-Year ice as in Canadian code –second, completely separate colour code based on ice types instead of concentration

14. Canadian Practice

15. Russian Practice

16. Next Steps Agreement on colour proposal Each ice service produce all of their charts according to the proposed standard for the period January 1, 2002 to October 31, 2002 as internal products only Advise colour code working group of any difficulties encountered during this period Adjust as appropriate and adopt revised proposal at IICWG in 2002 Submit to JCOMM Sea Ice Expert Panel for adoption as WMO standard