Agencies are participating in cooperative sea ice efforts

To date, ten agencies with research responsibilities relates to sea ice have participated development of a framework of observations, research and modeling to support forecasting and prediction of sea ice extent on seasonal to annual scales for operational and research needs.

An early success was the publication of the National Academy of Sciences report on Seasonal-to-Decadal Predictions of Arctic Sea Ice: Challenges and Strategies. The report prompted a lengthy discussion, which also included the modeling implementation team, of the potential value of a sea ice inter-comparison project as part of a larger effort to improve large-scale coupled models and sea ice prediction. A significant outcome of that discussion was the initiation of a "Sea Ice Prediction Network" funded by NSF, ONR, NASA and DOE, and which also includes the "Sea Ice Demonstration" project of the inter-agency "Earth System Prediction Capability" project (NOAA, USAF, US Navy, DOE, NASA, NSF).

The main field experiment of the ONR marginal ice zone project, scheduled for March-October 2014 in the Beaufort Sea and Canada Basin, will also involve NASA (Operation IceBridge), the intelligence community and, subject to availability, NOAA UAS assets. The 2014 marginal ice zone investigation will also include elements of pilot projects for the ONR "Sea State and Boundary Layer Physics of the Emerging Arctic Ocean" project and the BOEM-led "Marine Arctic Ecosystem Study (MARES)" project.