Percolation blockage: A process that enables melt pond formation on first year Arctic sea ice

Abstract. Melt pond formation is a common feature of the spring and summer Arctic sea ice. However, the role of the melt ponds formation and the impact of the sea ice melt on both the direction and size of CO2 flux between air and sea is still unknown. Here we describe the CO2-carbonate chemistry of melting sea ice, melt ponds and the underlying seawater associated with measurement of CO2 fluxes across first year landfast sea ice in the Resolute Passage, Nunavut, in June 2012. Early in the melt season, the increase of the ice temperature and the subsequent decrease of the bulk ice salinity promote a strong decrease of the total alkalinity (TA), total dissolved inorganic carbon (TCO2) and partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) within the bulk sea ice and the brine. Later on, melt pond formation affects both the bulk sea ice and the brine system. As melt ponds are formed from melted snow the in situ melt pond pCO2 is low (36 μatm). The percolation of this low pCO2 melt water into the sea ice matrix dilutes the brine resulting in a strong decrease of the in situ brine pCO2 (to 20 μatm). As melt ponds reach equilibrium with the atmosphere, their in situ pCO2 increase (up to 380 μatm) and the percolation of this high concentration pCO2 melt water increase the in situ brine pCO2 within the sea ice matrix. The low in situ pCO2 observed in brine and melt ponds results in CO2 fluxes of −0.04 to −5.4 mmol m–2 d–1. As melt ponds reach equilibrium with the atmosphere, the uptake becomes less significant. However, since melt ponds are continuously supplied by melt water their in situ pCO2 still remains low, promoting a continuous but moderate uptake of CO2 (~ −1mmol m–2 d–1). The potential uptake of atmospheric CO2 by melting sea ice during the Arctic summer has been estimated from 7 to 16 Tg of C ignoring the role of melt ponds. This additional uptake of CO2 associated to Arctic sea ice needs to be further explored and considered in the estimation of the Arctic Ocean's overall CO2 budget.

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Observations of Sea Ice Melt from Operation IceBridge Imagery

10.5194/tc-2019-288 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Nicholas C. Wright ◽

Chris M. Polashenski ◽

Scott T. McMichael ◽

Ross A. Beyer

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

First Year ◽

Ice Melt ◽

Melt Pond ◽

Ice Surface ◽

Optical Images ◽

Arctic Sea ◽

Ice Floes ◽

Multiyear Ice

Abstract. The summer albedo of Arctic sea ice is heavily dependent on the fraction and color of melt ponds that form on the ice surface. This work presents a new dataset of sea ice surface fractions along Operation IceBridge (OIB) flight tracks derived from the Digital Mapping System optical imagery set. This dataset was created by deploying version 2 of the Open Source Sea-ice Processing (OSSP) algorithm to NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing Pleiades System. These new surface fraction results are then analyzed to investigate the behavior of meltwater on first-year ice in comparison to multiyear ice. Observations herein show that first-year ice does not ubiquitously have a higher melt pond fraction than multiyear ice under the same forcing conditions, contrary to established knowledge in the sea ice community. We discover and document a larger possible spread of pond fractions on first year ice leading to both high and low pond coverage, in contrast to the uniform melt evolution that has been previously observed on multiyear ice floes. We also present a selection of optical images that captures both the typical and atypical ice types, as observed from the OIB dataset. We hope to demonstrate the power of this new dataset and to encourage future collaborative efforts to utilize the OIB data to explore the behavior of melt pond formation Arctic sea ice.

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Inorganic carbon dynamics of melt-pond-covered first-year sea ice in the Canadian Arctic

Biogeosciences ◽

10.5194/bg-12-2047-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 2047-2061 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

N.-X. Geilfus ◽

R. J. Galley ◽

O. Crabeck ◽

T. Papakyriakou ◽

J. Landy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

The Arctic ◽

First Year ◽

Co2 Fluxes ◽

Ice Melt ◽

Melt Pond ◽

Melt Ponds ◽

Arctic Sea

Abstract. Melt pond formation is a common feature of spring and summer Arctic sea ice, but the role and impact of sea ice melt and pond formation on both the direction and size of CO2 fluxes between air and sea is still unknown. Here we report on the CO2–carbonate chemistry of melting sea ice, melt ponds and the underlying seawater as well as CO2 fluxes at the surface of first-year landfast sea ice in the Resolute Passage, Nunavut, in June 2012. Early in the melt season, the increase in ice temperature and the subsequent decrease in bulk ice salinity promote a strong decrease of the total alkalinity (TA), total dissolved inorganic carbon (TCO2) and partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) within the bulk sea ice and the brine. As sea ice melt progresses, melt ponds form, mainly from melted snow, leading to a low in situ melt pond pCO2 (36 μatm). The percolation of this low salinity and low pCO2 meltwater into the sea ice matrix decreased the brine salinity, TA and TCO2, and lowered the in situ brine pCO2 (to 20 μatm). This initial low in situ pCO2 observed in brine and melt ponds results in air–ice CO2 fluxes ranging between −0.04 and −5.4 mmol m−2 day−1 (negative sign for fluxes from the atmosphere into the ocean). As melt ponds strive to reach pCO2 equilibrium with the atmosphere, their in situ pCO2 increases (up to 380 μatm) with time and the percolation of this relatively high concentration pCO2 meltwater increases the in situ brine pCO2 within the sea ice matrix as the melt season progresses. As the melt pond pCO2 increases, the uptake of atmospheric CO2 becomes less significant. However, since melt ponds are continuously supplied by meltwater, their in situ pCO2 remains undersaturated with respect to the atmosphere, promoting a continuous but moderate uptake of CO2 (~ −1 mmol m−2 day−1) into the ocean. Considering the Arctic seasonal sea ice extent during the melt period (90 days), we estimate an uptake of atmospheric CO2 of −10.4 Tg of C yr−1. This represents an additional uptake of CO2 associated with Arctic sea ice that needs to be further explored and considered in the estimation of the Arctic Ocean's overall CO2 budget.

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Observations of sea ice melt from Operation IceBridge imagery

The Cryosphere ◽

10.5194/tc-14-3523-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (10) ◽

pp. 3523-3536

Author(s):

Nicholas C. Wright ◽

Chris M. Polashenski ◽

Scott T. McMichael ◽

Ross A. Beyer

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

First Year ◽

Ice Melt ◽

Melt Pond ◽

Ice Surface ◽

Optical Images ◽

Arctic Sea ◽

Ice Floes ◽

Multiyear Ice

Abstract. The summer albedo of Arctic sea ice is heavily dependent on the fraction and color of melt ponds that form on the ice surface. This work presents a new dataset of sea ice surface fractions along Operation IceBridge (OIB) flight tracks derived from the Digital Mapping System optical imagery set. This dataset was created by deploying version 2 of the Open Source Sea-ice Processing (OSSP) algorithm to NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Pleiades System. These new surface fraction results are then analyzed to investigate the behavior of meltwater on first-year ice in comparison to multiyear ice. Observations herein show that first-year ice does not ubiquitously have a higher melt pond fraction than multiyear ice under the same forcing conditions, contrary to established knowledge in the sea ice community. We discover and document a larger possible spread of pond fractions on first-year ice leading to both high and low pond coverage, in contrast to the uniform melt evolution that has been previously observed on multiyear ice floes. We also present a selection of optical images that capture both the typical and atypical ice types, as observed from the OIB dataset. The derived OIB data presented here will be key to explore the behavior of melt pond formation Arctic sea ice.

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Application of Aerosondes to Melt-Pond Observations over Arctic Sea Ice

Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology ◽

10.1175/2007jtecha955.1 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 327-334 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Jun Inoue ◽

Judith A. Curry ◽

James A. Maslanik

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

The Arctic ◽

First Year ◽

Melt Pond ◽

Earth Observing System ◽

Melt Ponds ◽

Arctic Sea ◽

Ice Concentration ◽

Aerial Vehicle

Abstract Continuous observation of sea ice using a small robotic aircraft called the Aerosonde was made over the Arctic Ocean from Barrow, Alaska, on 20–21 July 2003. Over a region located 350 km off the coast of Barrow, images obtained from the aircraft were used to characterize the sea ice and to determine the fraction of melt ponds on both multiyear and first-year ice. Analysis of the data indicates that melt-pond fraction increased northward from 20% to 30% as the ice fraction increased. However, the fraction of ponded ice was over 30% in the multiyear ice zone while it was about 25% in the first-year ice zone. A comparison with a satellite microwave product showed that the ice concentration derived from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) has a negative bias of 7% due to melt ponds. These analyses demonstrate the utility of recent advances in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology for monitoring and interpreting the spatial variations in the sea ice with melt ponds.

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Arctic sea ice volume budget decomposition satellite product for the CryoSat-2 (2010-2020) period

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-12079 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Harry Heorton ◽

Michel Tsamados ◽

Paul Holland ◽

Jack Landy

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Climate Model ◽

Volume Growth ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

First Year ◽

Sea Ice Concentration ◽

Marginal Seas ◽

Ice Volume ◽

Arctic Sea ◽

Ice Concentration

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. Ice growth is fastest during Autumn, in the Marginal Seas and over first year ice.&#160;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.

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Derivation of melt pond coverage on Arctic sea ice using MODIS observations

Remote Sensing of Environment ◽

10.1016/j.rse.2007.12.009 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 112 (5) ◽

pp. 2605-2614 ◽

Cited By ~ 103

Author(s):

Mark A. Tschudi ◽

James A. Maslanik ◽

Donald K. Perovich

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

Melt Pond ◽

Arctic Sea

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Investigation of spatiotemporal variability of melt pond fraction and its relationship with sea ice extent during 2000–2017 using a new data

10.5194/tc-2019-208 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Yifan Ding ◽

Xiao Cheng ◽

Jiping Liu ◽

Fengming Hui ◽

Zhenzhan Wang

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Basin ◽

Beaufort Sea ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

Spatiotemporal Variability ◽

First Year ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽

Sea Ice Extent ◽

Melt Pond ◽

Melt Ponds

Abstract. The accurate knowledge of variations of melt ponds is important for understanding Arctic energy budget due to its albedo-transmittance-melt feedback. In this study, we develop and validate a new method for retrieving melt pond fraction (MPF) from the MODIS surface reflectance. We construct an ensemble-based deep neural network and use in-situ observations of MPF from multi-sources to train the network. The results show that our derived MPF is in good agreement with the observations, and relatively outperforms the MPF retrieved by University of Hamburg. Built on this, we create a new MPF data from 2000 to 2017 (the longest data in our knowledge), and analyze the spatial and temporal variability of MPF. It is found that the MPF has significant increasing trends from late July to early September, which is largely contributed by the MPF over the first-year sea ice. The analysis based on our MPF during 2000–2017 confirms that the integrated MPF to late June does promise to improve the prediction skill of seasonal Arctic sea ice minimum. However, our MPF data shows concentrated significant correlations first appear in a band, extending from the eastern Beaufort Sea, through the central Arctic, to the northern East Siberian and Laptev Seas in early-mid June, and then shifts towards large areas of the Beaufort Sea, Canadian Arctic, the northern Greenland Sea and the central Arctic basin.

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Modeling the anisotropic brine microstructure in first-year Arctic sea ice

Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres ◽

10.1029/2011jc007607 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 117 (C2) ◽

pp. n/a-n/a ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

K. A. Jones ◽

M. Ingham ◽

H. Eicken

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

First Year ◽

Arctic Sea

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Monitoring evolution of melt ponds on first-year and multiyear sea ice in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago with optical satellite data

Annals of Glaciology ◽

10.1017/aog.2020.24 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 61 (82) ◽

pp. 154-163

Author(s):

Qing Li ◽

Chunxia Zhou ◽

Lei Zheng ◽

Tingting Liu ◽

Xiaotong Yang

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Canadian Arctic ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

First Year ◽

Landsat 8 ◽

Canadian Arctic Archipelago ◽

Melt Pond ◽

Melt Ponds ◽

Validation Experiment ◽

Multiyear Ice

AbstractThe evolution of melt ponds on Arctic sea ice in summer is one of the main factors that affect sea-ice albedo and hence the polar climate system. Due to the different spectral properties of open water, melt pond and sea ice, the melt pond fraction (MPF) can be retrieved using a fully constrained least-squares algorithm, which shows a high accuracy with root mean square error ~0.06 based on the validation experiment using WorldView-2 image. In this study, the evolution of ponds on first-year and multiyear ice in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago was compared based on Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 images. The relationships of pond coverage with air temperature and albedo were analysed. The results show that the pond coverage on first-year ice changed dramatically with seasonal maximum of 54%, whereas that on multiyear ice changed relatively flat with only 30% during the entire melting period. During the stage of pond formation, the ponds expanded rapidly when the temperature increased to over 0°C for three consecutive days. Sea-ice albedo shows a significantly negative correlation (R = −1) with the MPF in melt season and increases gradually with the refreezing of ponds and sea ice.

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