1. The German Ice Service: short historical overview the ice service today

2. 1879-1896:records from different stations available 1896: Establishment of Ice Service (Eisnachrichtendienst) - coordination of existing services - daily publications of ice conditions - data in tabulated format - attachment to weather information

3. 1920/21Introduction of national Ice Code 1. digit:ice conditions 2. digit:consequences for navigation 1922Transmission of ice reports via radio stations 1927/28publication of first ice charts 1929airborne ice observations

4. 1929introduction of Baltic Ice code Version 1 1. digit represents ice conditions 2. digit represents nautical conditions various national codes can be replaced information exchange of the neighboring countries is possible 19531. WMO Sea Ice Nomenclature 1954/55Baltic Ice Code (Version 2) 19682. WMO Sea Ice Nomenclature

5. 1968/69use of satellite images to gain ice information 1981/82Baltic Ice code (Version 3) 1985/89Suppl.4 and Suppl. 5 of Sea Ice Nomenclature (latest Version) 1990reunion of east and west German ice services analogue archive until 1979/80 1978/80introduction of digital database

6. The Baltic Ice Code: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden and Germany Used to describe concentration, stage of development, shape of ice, nautical conditions exchange code using WMO terminology areas of interest (fairways, harbour areas, routes etc.) are subdivided in districts and sections (e.g. AA1 AA2 …) general format: [distr. code]A B S B T B K B A B amountS B stage of development, T B topographyK B navigational conditions

7. Copenhagen Stockholm Oslo Helsinki Riga Tallinn GdanskKiel Kaliningrad Klaipeda The Baltic Sea

8. close cooperation with all Baltic Ice Services, especially with Swedish and Finish Source data from NOAA Satellites, Icebreakers, airborne data is processed with ‘Icemap’ software (contouring methods) interactive processing of latest ice charts data distribution via mail, fax, e-mail (in future via Internet) data distribution format : hardcopy or pdf files display format according to ‘WMO Sea-Ice Nomenclature’ fill patterns and additional symbols egg code hardly used Ice service of BSH Germany (Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany)

9. Temperature and ice chart from NOAA Source Data

10. Ice chart with hatched sea ice areas (source: German Ice Service)