The Arctic sea-ice navigability index

A rapidly changing sea-ice regime in the Arctic demands an index that could provide a priori information to icebreakers for hazard-free navigation through ice across the Arctic. This study presents a new sea-ice navigability index, solely based on daily available remote-sensing products. The index has a numerical scale from 0 to 100 that represents the navigability of icebreakers through sea ice. High mobility of sea ice implies that there may be fragmented ice floes that are susceptible to quick displacement, thus allowing an icebreaker to navigate through the ice.