Weekly Report on Arctic Sea Ice September 14, 2020
Comparison of sea ice extent on September 14 (green is forecast, white background is satellite observation).
The forecast is relatively matched with the observations.
The amazing point of this forecast is that the distribution is well matched. If the extent is matched, it may be that the extent of one part is predicted very low and other very large, but the total is good when added. This makes no sense. Inconsistent distribution is meaningless when, in particular, using sea ice forecast for utilization of sea routes.
Last year our forecast predicted the extent 10% larger than the observation, which could be said to be off. However, since the entire distribution was correct, the error in the forecast of the opening date of the sea route was within a week. This is actually a great thing.
There is still no other organization that challenges to “forecast sea ice extent for several months ahead”, which means it is hard for us to get a fair evaluation as we have no competitor, but remember, the world’s highest quality seasonal forecast for Arctic sea ice (yet only for summer) is disseminated from Japan.
