FMI Polar View Products


Welcome to the Finnish Meteorological Institute's Polar View product site! As of 1 January 2009, the activities of the Finnish Institute of Marine Research have been moved to the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). This website is still under development and will be more user-friendly in the future. Currently we are producing two operational services during the Baltic Sea ice season:

FMI Polar View ice services are currently on the summer break! Our thickness charts continue to show the latest images from the last winter while our ice forecasts page displays an example of last winter's forecasts. The service will return when ice returns.

Ice Thickness Charts are operationally produced every time a SAR image has been received, using the latest available ice chart as an input. The algorithm, which combines SAR data and ground truth, provides ice thickness information in 500 m resolution. The products are provided operationally and are available for users shortly after the SAR data is available.

Ice Forecasts are published daily around 7:00 UTC. The forecasts cover the area of the northern Baltic Sea with spatial resolution of one nautical mile, and range over two days in three-hour steps. For the 54th forecast the model is forced with atmospheric model data from HIRLAM. Ice parameters are based on products made from satellite data. The quality of the forecasts will be evaluated during the project perioid, and improvements will be made in the meantime.

There's also an experimental SAR-based ice motion calculation available. The ice motion is calculated from a pair of consecutive satellite images.

You could also visit SMHI's Polar View product site for 10 day ice forecasts.

Handouts of the Baltic Sea services can be downloaded as pdf-files for
Ice Forecasts over the Baltic Sea and Ice Thickness Charts over the Baltic Sea.


Polarview Logo Polar View is an earth observation (or satellite remote-sensing) project (2005-2008), focused on both the Arctic and the Antarctic. Polar View is financed by the European Space Agency (ESA) under GSE programme and promotes the utilization of satellites for public good and supporting public policy. The Polar View Team consists of companies, government agencies and research institutes across Europe and Canada. Each organization brings diverse, complementary skills and experience to the Polar View program and is committed to establishing a dedicated service for addressing polar issues using earth observation technologies.