Spatial and Temporal Variations of Arctic Sea Ice From 2002 to 2017

Abstract

The variation of polar sea ice is an indicator of polar environmental change, which plays an important role in the study of regional and global climate change. In this paper, the latest sea ice data sets from the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative were firstly combined to comprehensively analyze the spatial and temporal variation of Arctic sea ice concentration (SIC) and sea ice thickness (SIT) from 2002 to 2017. The results show that during this period, the SIC of the Kara Sea and the Barents Sea decreases the most significantly, reaching −1.11%•year −1. The Arctic annual average sea ice extent (SIE) and sea ice area (SIA) exhibit noticeable decreasing trends, reaching −0.0592 × 10 6 km•year −1 and −0.0628 × 10 6 km•year −1 , respectively. Both of Arctic SIE and SIA vary seasonally, and they reach the minimum values of 4.97 × 10 6 km 2 and 3.96 × 10 6 km 2 in September and the maximum values of 14.58 × 10 6 km 2 and 13.35 × 10 6 km 2 in March, respectively. Moreover, the Arctic SIE and SIA anomaly series from 2002 to 2017 were analyzed based on the linear regression method. It is found the most noticeable decreasing trends of the Arctic SIE and SIA are from July to October. The maximum variation of the SIE is −1.06 × 10 6 km 2 (10a) −1 , and the maximum variation of the SIA is −1.09 × 10 6 km 2 (10a) −1. The Arctic SIE and SIA present the smallest decreasing trends from April to May, which are −0.19 × 10 6 km 2 (10a) −1 and −0.2 × 10 6 km 2 (10a) −1 , respectively. The Arctic SIT also displays a pronounced decreasing trend with −0.015 m•year −1 in autumn and −0.018 m•year −1 in winter. The annual average SIT reaches a minimum of 1.28 m in 2013 and a maximum of 1.66 m in 2005. Particularly, the SIT of the Hudson Bay decreases the most significantly, reaching −0.051 m•year −1. Finally, the Arctic average SIT was tested by the Mann-Kendall method. It is found that the SIT has a sudden change in 2007, from a slight increase in 2003-2007 to a significant decrease in 2007-2017. Overall, the decreasing trend of the Arctic sea ice (both SIC and SIT) is significant in the past decade. These findings can contribute to future research on polar regions and global climate change.

Sea ice concentration impacts dissolved organic gases in the Canadian Arctic

“…One of the most obvious signs of the warming/changing Arctic is the changes in sea ice. Sea ice is rapidly decreasing in extent and concentration (Meier et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2020b), melting earlier, and freezing up later in the season (Markus et al, 2009;Wang et al, 2020b). The effects of these changes on the marine biogeochemistry and trace gas emissions are poorly known (Huntington et al, 2019), largely due to a lack of measurements.…”

Increased sea ice melt as a driver of enhanced Arctic phytoplankton blooming

“…While the steepest satellite chlorophyll a concentration increase is typically observed in June, for the May 2019 event the steepest increase occurred in early May and mean chlorophyll a concentrations were higher than all previous May values and higher than all previous June values except 2015 (Figure 1). Previous studies have demonstrated that such anomalous events can offer natural experiments (e.g., Wang et al, 2020), revealing greater insights on bloom control in this dynamic and rapidly changing ecosystem. Here, we investigate underlying mechanisms that may have led to this exceptional event.…”

“…While the steepest satellite chlorophyll a concentration increase is typically observed in June, for the May 2019 event the steepest increase occurred in early May and mean chlorophyll a concentrations were higher than all previous May values and higher than all previous June values except 2015 (Figure 1). Previous studies have demonstrated that such anomalous events can offer natural experiments (e.g., Wang et al, 2020) (Sathyendranath et al, 2019). Sea ice concentration (SIC) contour lines shown are averaged over the same time period and computed from the NASA Team processing algorithm of the SMMR-SSM/I satellite record (Cavalieri et al, 1996).…”

Impact of Sea Ice Melting on Summer Air-Sea CO2 Exchange in the East Siberian Sea

“…The East Siberian Sea (ESS) is one of the least studied subregions in the Arctic Ocean, although this region is experiencing the most rapid change in sea ice coverage, which could be partially attributed to recent Siberian heatwaves (Stroeve et al, 2012;Krumpen et al, 2019;Overland and Wang, 2020;Wang et al, 2020). In this perspective, we aim to quantify the effect of sea ice melting on the summertime CO 2 absorption capacity of the ESS, dependent on the degree of freshening and TA/DIC concentration and ratio of the sea ice.…”