Multi-frequency polarimetric microwave observations of snow cover on first-year Arctic sea ice

Author(s):  
Vishnu Nandan ◽  
John J. Yackel ◽  
Jagvijay P. S. Gill ◽  
Torsten Geldsetzer ◽  
Mark C. Fuller
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Heorton ◽  
Michel Tsamados ◽  
Paul Holland ◽  
Jack Landy

<p><span>We combine satellite-derived observations of sea ice concentration, drift, and thickness to provide the first observational decomposition of the dynamic (advection/divergence) and thermodynamic (melt/growth) drivers of wintertime Arctic sea ice volume change. Ten winter growth seasons are analyzed over the CryoSat-2 period between October 2010 and April 2020. Sensitivity to several observational products is performed to provide an estimated uncertainty of the budget calculations. The total thermodynamic ice volume growth and dynamic ice losses are calculated with marked seasonal, inter-annual and regional variations</span><span>. Ice growth is fastest during Autumn, in the Marginal Seas and over first year ice</span><span>. Our budget decomposition methodology can help diagnose the processes confounding climate model predictions of sea ice. We make our product and code available to the community in monthly pan-Arctic netcdft files for the entire October 2010 to April 2020 period.</span></p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 117 (C2) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
K. A. Jones ◽  
M. Ingham ◽  
H. Eicken
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 225-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.W. Lindsay

AbstractThe RADARSAT geophysical processor system (RGPS) uses sequential synthetic aperture radar images of Arctic sea ice taken every 3 days to track a large set of Lagrangian points over the winter and spring seasons. The points are the vertices of cells, which are initially square and 10 km on a side, and the changes in the area of these cells due to opening and closing of the ice are used to estimate the fractional area of a set of first-year ice categories. The thickness of each category is estimated by the RGPS from an empirical relationship between ice thickness and the freezing degree-days since the formation of the ice. With a parameterization of the albedo based on the ice thickness, the albedo may be estimated from the first-year ice distribution. We compute the albedo for the first spring processed by the RGPS, the early spring of 1997. The data include most of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. We find that the mean albedo is 0.79 with a standard deviation of 0.04, with lower albedo values near the edge of the perennial ice zone. The biggest source of error is likely the assumed rate of snow accumulation on new ice.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1161-1179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alek A. Petty ◽  
Michel C. Tsamados ◽  
Nathan T. Kurtz ◽  
Sinead L. Farrell ◽  
Thomas Newman ◽  
...  

Abstract. We present an analysis of Arctic sea ice topography using high-resolution, three-dimensional surface elevation data from the Airborne Topographic Mapper, flown as part of NASA's Operation IceBridge mission. Surface features in the sea ice cover are detected using a newly developed surface feature picking algorithm. We derive information regarding the height, volume and geometry of surface features from 2009 to 2014 within the Beaufort/Chukchi and Central Arctic regions. The results are delineated by ice type to estimate the topographic variability across first-year and multi-year ice regimes. The results demonstrate that Arctic sea ice topography exhibits significant spatial variability, mainly driven by the increased surface feature height and volume (per unit area) of the multi-year ice that dominates the Central Arctic region. The multi-year ice topography exhibits greater interannual variability compared to the first-year ice regimes, which dominates the total ice topography variability across both regions. The ice topography also shows a clear coastal dependency, with the feature height and volume increasing as a function of proximity to the nearest coastline, especially north of Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago. A strong correlation between ice topography and ice thickness (from the IceBridge sea ice product) is found, using a square-root relationship. The results allude to the importance of ice deformation variability in the total sea ice mass balance, and provide crucial information regarding the tail of the ice thickness distribution across the western Arctic. Future research priorities associated with this new data set are presented and discussed, especially in relation to calculations of atmospheric form drag.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 2031-2051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niccolò Maffezzoli ◽  
Paul Vallelonga ◽  
Ross Edwards ◽  
Alfonso Saiz-Lopez ◽  
Clara Turetta ◽  
...  

Abstract. Although it has been demonstrated that the speed and magnitude of the recent Arctic sea ice decline is unprecedented for the past 1450 years, few records are available to provide a paleoclimate context for Arctic sea ice extent. Bromine enrichment in ice cores has been suggested to indicate the extent of newly formed sea ice areas. Despite the similarities among sea ice indicators and ice core bromine enrichment records, uncertainties still exist regarding the quantitative linkages between bromine reactive chemistry and the first-year sea ice surfaces. Here we present a 120 000-year record of bromine enrichment from the RECAP (REnland ice CAP) ice core, coastal east Greenland, and interpret it as a record of first-year sea ice. We compare it to existing sea ice records from marine cores and tentatively reconstruct past sea ice conditions in the North Atlantic as far north as the Fram Strait (50–85∘ N). Our interpretation implies that during the last deglaciation, the transition from multi-year to first-year sea ice started at ∼17.5 ka, synchronously with sea ice reductions observed in the eastern Nordic Seas and with the increase in North Atlantic ocean temperature. First-year sea ice reached its maximum at 12.4–11.8 ka during the Younger Dryas, after which open-water conditions started to dominate, consistent with sea ice records from the eastern Nordic Seas and the North Icelandic shelf. Our results show that over the last 120 000 years, multi-year sea ice extent was greatest during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 and possibly during MIS 4, with more extended first-year sea ice during MIS 3 and MIS 5. Sea ice extent during the Holocene (MIS 1) has been less than at any time in the last 120 000 years.


2017 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 413-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Polashenski ◽  
Kenneth M. Golden ◽  
Donald K. Perovich ◽  
Eric Skyllingstad ◽  
Alexandra Arnsten ◽  
...  

1991 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROLF GRADINGER ◽  
MICHAEL SPINDLER ◽  
DETLEV HENSCHEL
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  

2003 ◽  
Vol 108 (C2) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Light ◽  
G. A. Maykut ◽  
T. C. Grenfell

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. A. Alexeev ◽  
V. V. Ivanov ◽  
R. Kwok ◽  
L. H. Smedsrud

Abstract. Long-term thinning of arctic sea ice over the last few decades has resulted in significant declines in the coverage of thick multi-year ice accompanied by a proportional increase in thinner first-year ice. This change is often attributed to changes in the arctic atmosphere, both in composition and large-scale circulation, and greater inflow of warmer Pacific water through the Bering Strait. The Atlantic Water (AW) entering the Arctic through Fram Strait has often been considered less important because of strong stratification in the Arctic Ocean and the deeper location of AW compared to Pacific water. In our combined examination of oceanographic measurements and satellite observations of ice concentration and thickness, we find evidence that AW has a direct impact on the thinning of arctic sea ice downstream of Svalbard Archipelago. The affected area extends as far as Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago. The imprints of AW appear as local minima in sea ice thickness; ice thickness is significantly less than that expected of first-year ice. Our lower-end conservative estimates indicate that the recent AW warming episode could have contributed up to 150–200 km3 of sea ice melt per year, which would constitute about 20% of the total 900 km3yr−1 negative trend in sea ice volume since 2004.


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