Bathymetry (seafloor depth), is a critical parameter providing the geospatial context for a multitude of marine scientific studies. Since 1997, the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO) has been the authoritative source of bathymetry for the Arctic Ocean. IBCAO has merged its efforts with the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO-Seabed 2030 Project, with the goal of mapping all of the oceans by 2030. Here we present the latest version (IBCAO Ver. 4.0), with more than twice the resolution (200 × 200 m versus 500 × 500 m) and with individual depth soundings constraining three times more area of the Arctic Ocean (∼19.8% versus 6.7%), than the previous IBCAO Ver. 3.0 released in 2012. Modern multibeam bathymetry comprises ∼14.3% in Ver. 4.0 compared to ∼5.4% in Ver. 3.0. Thus, the new IBCAO Ver. 4.0 has substantially more seafloor morphological information that offers new insights into a range of submarine features and processes; for example, the improved portrayal of Greenland fjords better serves predictive modelling of the fate of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Background & Summary A broad range of Arctic climate and environmental research, including questions on the declining cryosphere and the geological history of the Arctic Basin, require knowledge of the depth and shape of the seafloor 1-3. Bathymetry provides the geospatial framework for these and other studies 4 and has impact on many processes, including the pathways of ocean currents and, thus, the distribution of heat 5,6 , sea-ice decline 7 , the effect of inflowing warm waters on tidewater glaciers 8 , and the stability of marine-based ice streams and outlet glaciers grounded on the seabed 9-11. Bathymetric data from large parts of the Arctic Ocean are, however, not available or extremely sparse due to difficulties, both logistical and political, in accessing the region 12. The International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO) project, was initiated in 1997 in St Petersburg, Russia, to address the need for up-to-date digital portrayals of the Arctic Ocean seafloor 13. Since 1997, three Digital Bathymetric Models (DBMs) have ingested new data sets compiled by the IBCAO project team and have been released for public use 14-16. These DBMs comprised grids with a regular cell size of 2.5 × 2.5 km (Ver. 1.0), 2 × 2 km (Ver. 2.0) and 500 × 500 m (Ver. 3.0) on a Polar Stereographic projection. Depth estimates for grid cells between constraining depth observations were interpolated by the continuous curvature spline in a tension gridding algorithm 17. All depth data available at the time of the compilations were used, including multi-and single-beam bathymetry, and contours and soundings digitized from depth charts, with direct depth observations having the highest priority and digitized contours the lowest 18. Recognizing the importance of complete global bathymetry, the General Bathymetric Chart of the Ocean (GEBCO), a project under the auspices of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commissio...
A robust and flexible technique to segment seafloor acoustic mapping data by analyzing co-located bathymetric digital elevation models and acoustic backscatter mosaics is presented. The algorithm first uses principles of topographic openness, pattern recognition, and texture classification to identify geomorphic elements of the seafloor or "area kernels", and then derives the final seafloor segmentation by merging or splitting the kernels based on principles of similarity and multi-modality. The output is a collection of homogeneous, non-overlapping seafloor segments of consistent morphology and acoustic backscatter texture. Each labeled segment is enriched by a list of derived, physically-meaningful attributes that can be used for subsequent task-specific analysis.
The nautical chart is one of the fundamental tools in navigation used by mariners to plan and safely execute voyages. Its compilation follows strict cartographic constraints with the most prominent being that of the safety. Thereby, the cartographer is called to make the selection of the bathymetric information for portrayal on charts in a way that, at any location, the expected water depth is not deeper than the source information. To validate the shoal-biased pattern of selection two standard tests are used, i.e. the triangle and edge tests. To date, some efforts have been made towards the automation of the triangle test, but the edge test has been largely ignored. In the context of research on a fully automated solution for the compilation of charts at different scales from the source information, this paper presents an algorithmic implementation of the two tests for the validation of selected soundings. Through a case study with real-world data, it presents the improved performance of the implementation near and within depth curves and coastlines and points out the importance of the edge test in the validation process. It also presents the, by definition, intrinsic limitation of the two tests as part of a fully automated solution and discusses the need for a new test that will complement or supersede the existing ones.
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