Ice and Environmental Conditions 



Introduction 



The 1999 ice year will be recorded 

 as one of the mildest in International Ice 

 Patrol's history. In fact, it was so mild that 

 Ice Patrol never formally opened the 

 iceberg season and issued no formal 

 iceberg warnings. What made the year 

 even more remarkable was that repeated 

 reconnaissance flights by IIP and the 

 Canadian Ice Service and numerous 

 reports from shipping documented a very 

 large population north of 48°N. The 

 icebergs south of 52"N were confined to 

 the bight of Newfoundland (the area 

 between Funk Island and Cape Bauld) and 

 in the northern arm of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence (Figure 13). Very few icebergs 

 escaped this region, and ultimately they 

 deteriorated in place. 



For record keeping purposes, the 

 IIP ice year extends from October through 

 September. The following month-by-month 

 narrative of the progress of the 1999 ice 



season begins as sea ice began forming 

 along the Labrador coast in December 

 1998 and concludes in July 1999 as the 

 last vestiges of the sea ice departed the 

 Labrador coast. The narrative draws from 

 several sources, including the Seasonal 

 Summary for Eastern Canadian Waters, 

 Winter 1998-1999 (Canadian Ice Service, 

 1999); sea ice analyses provided by the 

 Canadian Ice Service and the National Ice 

 Center; and the Integrated Global Ocean 

 Services System Products (IGOSS) sea 

 surface temperature anomaly (Climate 

 Data Library, International Research 

 Institute for climate prediction at Lamont- 

 Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia 

 University); and, finally, summaries of the 

 iceberg data collected by Ice Patrol and 

 CIS. 



Comparing the 1998-1999 sea ice 

 and iceberg observations to the historical 

 record emphasizes the departures from 

 normal. For sea ice. Cote (1989) provides 

 maximum, median, and minimum extent of 



Figure 13. Area map. 



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