Roshydromet and the Russian Ministry of

Arctic flaw polynyas are considered to be highly productive areas for the formation of sea ice throughout the winter season. Particularly the polynya system in the Laptev Sea area of the Siberian Arctic (Fig.1) is known to contribute to considerably to the total Arctic ice budget. However, estimates of sea ice production in the Laptev Sea polynyas are arguable since high resolution and high quality atmospheric data is not available for that area. Previous estimations of ice production rely on global reanalyses as atmospheric forcing, such as NCEP with about 200km horizontal resolution, which is too coarse to take polynyas into account