BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- An updated version of the Arctic sea ice short-term forecast system has started operation, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources on Wednesday.

The previous version of the Arctic sea ice short-term forecast system with 18 km horizontal resolution was built in 2017 and served China's eighth Arctic expedition.

During the country's ninth Arctic expedition, the researchers evaluated the new version which had lower than 20 percent sea ice intensity and 0.36 meters thickness prediction errors with seven days in advance.

And a 4.5 km horizontal resolution version of the sea ice forecast system is being tested and expected to be put into trial operation by the end of 2019.