Colour Tables and Sea-Ice Information Products and Forecasts: Flexibility Versus Consistency: Allowing Polar Mariners to Understand Multiple Ice Products Within a Common Visualisation System

In order to interpret ice information products correctly and efficiently, it is important to have the information presented in a consistent way. In a system where the user can access many kinds of Near-Real-Time sea-ice related products from different providers, this issue is critical. The challenge is how to present these products in a way that effectively communicates the information and which is consistent across the whole range of available products, thus fulfilling the requirement that the colour scheme should be harmonised per physical parameter. The principle adopted and implemented is to use a layered approach where the values in the raster products are mapped to either explicit categories or to ranges of physical values. The physical values are then mapped to colour ranges thus ensuring that the same physical value is shown in the same colour independent of the origin. The system implemented in the FP7 POLAR ICE project enables harmonisation of the products coming from different providers and also supports interactive changing of the colour scale.