Improvements to the Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System: Updated Functionality, Imagery, and Transition to NWS NCEP Central Operations

The United States National Ice Center (USNIC) provides global to tactical scale ice and snow products, ice forecasting, and other environmental intelligence services for the United States government. The Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) utilizes an array of data sources to demarcate the presence of ice and snow across the Northern Hemisphere. This analysis is key to the USNIC’s mission as it serves as the backbone for model initialization, marine support products, and climatological research.

The USNIC has experienced growing demand for detailed products; therefore, ongoing development of the IMS software and resources are essential for continued improvement in a support capacity. The IMS software graphical user interface has received small but powerful upgrades to its draw utility. The most restrictive resource for an IMS analyst is time, with strict deadlines to complete the required analysis before product generation valid 18 UTC and 00 UTC. These upgrades have reduced the time-consuming work of the grid-based analysis, freeing up the analyst to more accurately analyze more complex areas or complete other support products.

Another limitation of the IMS analysis is imagery. With little to no alternative to remote sensing in the Arctic, further availability of high-resolution imagery presents a boon to IMS precision. The upcoming end of operations of MODIS has spearheaded the transition to VIIRS for polar orbiting visible imagery. Additionally, automated VIIRS snow and ice detection algorithms have improved for better discernment of cloud cover from snow and ice and retention of obstructed snow cover from previous days. Analysts now have the ability to directly insert the detected snow and ice fields from VIIRS into the analysis, further saving analyst time. Furthermore, RGB band enhancements have been added to the Geostationary satellite inputs from Himawari-9, an essential source for analyzing central and eastern Asia.

These analytical upgrades have been made concurrently with the IMS transition to NCEP’s Central Operations (NCO) network, marking the completion of a portion of the USNIC’s transition to the National Weather Service. NCO’s modern network provides speed and redundancy upgrades, including a completely independent backup located in Boulder, CO. These improvements serve to increase the stability, efficiency, and accuracy of the IMS analysis, providing an enhanced analysis process and product.