Operational ice services play a crucial role in ensuring maritime safety in ice-affected waters by providing routine information and forecasts. These services operate within a global community, sharing data and resources to enhance their capabilities. The changing climate has made marine operations in ice-covered areas more dynamic, increasing the demand for high-quality ice information. Despite the availability of large volumes of satellite data and improved forecast models, there is a pressing need for research to transform this data into actionable information for safe navigation. National ice and weather services, adhering to World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standards, are the authoritative sources for this information, facilitating critical exchanges between different national services. However, there is a need for these services to expand their offerings to include more detailed sea-ice parameters and forecasts, which will require the integration of advanced automation techniques not yet demonstrated by current products.

This research topic aims to explore the operational mandates of ice services, communicate the necessary research to support future maritime activities, and clarify the relationship between data and operational centers. The objectives include disseminating information on how individual ice services function, identifying research that can enhance maritime safety, and providing clear examples of useful research through complementary submissions. By addressing these goals, the research topic seeks to bridge the gap between data availability and practical application, ultimately improving navigation safety in ice-affected waters.

To gather further insights into the operational and research aspects of ice services, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
- Individual operational ice service mandates and routine products
- Automatic sea ice classification using multi-frequency SAR band synergies
- Automated ice mapping for navigational support
- New sensor capabilities for ice classification and mapping
- Short-term and long-term sea ice forecasting
- Long-term trends and validation from ice chart archives
- Assessment of uncertainties in sea ice mapping techniques
- Review of Antarctic sea-ice forecasting experiments
- Sea-ice modeling and data assimilation for forecasting
- Ice edge prediction systems and their operational deployment
- Climatology of regional and hemispheric sea ice
- Navigability assessment of East Antarctic coastal sites for non-icebreakers

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Frontiers in Marine Science

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