scholarly journals Ice Lithologies and Structure of Ice Island Arlis II

1964 ◽  
Vol 5 (37) ◽  
pp. 17-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Smith

AbstractIce island ARLIS II, which is adrift in the Arctic Ocean, is a 1.3 km. wide and 3.8 km. long fragment of shelf ice 12–25 m. thick, which preserves several structural features heretofore undescribed in ice. The island is composed of an irregular central block of foliated, locally debris-rich, grey glacial ice bordered in part by extensive areas of stratified bluish sea ice. The central block contains a series of narrow, elongate, sub-parallel dike-like septa of massive fresh-water ice and a large tongue-like body of tightly folded, coarse banded ice. Both the septa and the tongue cut across the foliation and debris zones of the grey ice.The margins of the central block are penetrated by a series of elongate, crudely wedge-shaped re-entrants occupied by salients of bluish sea ice. Two broad, arch-like plunging anticlines deform the stratified sea ice along one margin of the block.The foliation and debris zones in the glacial ice are relict features inherited from the source glacier. The septa formed as crevasse and basal fracture fills. Salients represent fills formed in the irregular re-entrants along the margins of the glacial ice mass. The tongue of tightly folded, banded ice represents an earlier generation salient deformed by compressive forces as the fill built up. The broad anticlines are apparently the result of warping in response to differential ablation but the small, tight plunging folds on their noses and limbs are probably the result of compressive forces.

1964 ◽  
Vol 5 (37) ◽  
pp. 17-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Smith

Abstract Ice island ARLIS II, which is adrift in the Arctic Ocean, is a 1.3 km. wide and 3.8 km. long fragment of shelf ice 12–25 m. thick, which preserves several structural features heretofore undescribed in ice. The island is composed of an irregular central block of foliated, locally debris-rich, grey glacial ice bordered in part by extensive areas of stratified bluish sea ice. The central block contains a series of narrow, elongate, sub-parallel dike-like septa of massive fresh-water ice and a large tongue-like body of tightly folded, coarse banded ice. Both the septa and the tongue cut across the foliation and debris zones of the grey ice. The margins of the central block are penetrated by a series of elongate, crudely wedge-shaped re-entrants occupied by salients of bluish sea ice. Two broad, arch-like plunging anticlines deform the stratified sea ice along one margin of the block. The foliation and debris zones in the glacial ice are relict features inherited from the source glacier. The septa formed as crevasse and basal fracture fills. Salients represent fills formed in the irregular re-entrants along the margins of the glacial ice mass. The tongue of tightly folded, banded ice represents an earlier generation salient deformed by compressive forces as the fill built up. The broad anticlines are apparently the result of warping in response to differential ablation but the small, tight plunging folds on their noses and limbs are probably the result of compressive forces.


2001 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 545-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Maslowski ◽  
D. C. Marble ◽  
W. Walczowski ◽  
A. J. Semtner

AbstractResults from a regional model of the Arctic Ocean and sea ice forced with realistic atmospheric data are analyzed to understand recent climate variability in the region. The primary simulation uses daily-averaged 1979 atmospheric fields repeated for 20 years and then continues with interannual forcing derived from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts for 1979−98. An eastward shift in the ice-ocean circulation, fresh-water distribution and Atlantic Water extent has been determined by comparing conditions between the early 1980s and 1990s. A new trend is modeled in the late 1990s, and has a tendency to return the large-scale sea-ice and upper ocean conditions to their state in the early 1980s. Both the sea-ice and the upper ocean circulation as well as fresh-water export from the Russian shelves and Atlantic Water recirculation within the Eurasian Basin indicate that the Arctic climate is undergoing another shift. This suggests an oscillatory behavior of the Arctic Ocean system. Interannual atmospheric variability appears to be the main and sufficient driver of simulated changes. The ice cover acts as an effective dynamic medium for vorticity transfer from the atmosphere into the ocean.


Eos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Shultz

The Siberian river’s creation caused a massive influx of fresh water into the Kara Sea and radically changed the Arctic Ocean and Earth’s climate.


2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (69) ◽  
pp. 83-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen St John ◽  
Sandra Passchier ◽  
Brooke TantillO ◽  
Dennis Darby ◽  
Lance Kearns

AbstractDistinguishing sea-ice-rafted debris (SIRD) from iceberg-rafted debris is crucial to an interpretation of ice-rafting history; however, there are few paleo-sea-ice proxies. This study characterizes quartz grain microfeatures of modern SIRD from the Arctic Ocean, and compares these results with microfeatures from representative glacial deposits to potentially differentiate SIRD from ice-rafted sediments which have been recently subjected to glacial processes. This allows us to evaluate the use of grain microfeatures as a paleo-sea-ice proxy. SIRD grains were largely subrounded, with medium relief, pervasive silica dissolution and a high abundance of breakage blocks and microlayering. The glacial grains were more angular, with lower relief and higher abundances of fractures and striations/gouges. Discriminate analysis shows a distinct difference between SIRD and glacial grains, with ˂7% of the SIRD grains containing typical glacial microtextures, suggesting this method is a useful means of inferring paleo-sea-ice presence in the marine record. We propose that differences in microfeatures of SIRD and glacial ice-rafted debris reflect differences in sediment transport and weathering histories. Sediment transported to a coastal setting and later rafted by sea ice would be subject to increased chemical weathering, whereas glaciers that calve icebergs would bypass the coastal marine environment, thus preserving their glacial signature.


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 866-882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina V. Gorodetskaya ◽  
L-Bruno Tremblay ◽  
Beate Liepert ◽  
Mark A. Cane ◽  
Richard I. Cullather

Abstract The impact of Arctic sea ice concentrations, surface albedo, cloud fraction, and cloud ice and liquid water paths on the surface shortwave (SW) radiation budget is analyzed in the twentieth-century simulations of three coupled models participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. The models are the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Model E-R (GISS-ER), the Met Office Third Hadley Centre Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere GCM (UKMO HadCM3), and the National Center for Atmosphere Research Community Climate System Model, version 3 (NCAR CCSM3). In agreement with observations, the models all have high Arctic mean cloud fractions in summer; however, large differences are found in the cloud ice and liquid water contents. The simulated Arctic clouds of CCSM3 have the highest liquid water content, greatly exceeding the values observed during the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) campaign. Both GISS-ER and HadCM3 lack liquid water and have excessive ice amounts in Arctic clouds compared to SHEBA observations. In CCSM3, the high surface albedo and strong cloud SW radiative forcing both significantly decrease the amount of SW radiation absorbed by the Arctic Ocean surface during the summer. In the GISS-ER and HadCM3 models, the surface and cloud effects compensate one another: GISS-ER has both a higher summer surface albedo and a larger surface incoming SW flux when compared to HadCM3. Because of the differences in the models’ cloud and surface properties, the Arctic Ocean surface gains about 20% and 40% more solar energy during the melt period in the GISS-ER and HadCM3 models, respectively, compared to CCSM3. In twenty-first-century climate runs, discrepancies in the surface net SW flux partly explain the range in the models’ sea ice area changes. Substantial decrease in sea ice area simulated during the twenty-first century in CCSM3 is associated with a large drop in surface albedo that is only partly compensated by increased cloud SW forcing. In this model, an initially high cloud liquid water content reduces the effect of the increase in cloud fraction and cloud liquid water on the cloud optical thickness, limiting the ability of clouds to compensate for the large surface albedo decrease. In HadCM3 and GISS-ER, the compensation of the surface albedo and cloud SW forcing results in negligible changes in the net SW flux and is one of the factors explaining moderate future sea ice area trends. Thus, model representations of cloud properties for today’s climate determine the ability of clouds to compensate for the effect of surface albedo decrease on the future shortwave radiative budget of the Arctic Ocean and, as a consequence, the sea ice mass balance.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 4027-4033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doo-Sun R. Park ◽  
Sukyoung Lee ◽  
Steven B. Feldstein

Abstract Wintertime Arctic sea ice extent has been declining since the late twentieth century, particularly over the Atlantic sector that encompasses the Barents–Kara Seas and Baffin Bay. This sea ice decline is attributable to various Arctic environmental changes, such as enhanced downward infrared (IR) radiation, preseason sea ice reduction, enhanced inflow of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean, and sea ice export. However, their relative contributions are uncertain. Utilizing ERA-Interim and satellite-based data, it is shown here that a positive trend of downward IR radiation accounts for nearly half of the sea ice concentration (SIC) decline during the 1979–2011 winter over the Atlantic sector. Furthermore, the study shows that the Arctic downward IR radiation increase is driven by horizontal atmospheric water flux and warm air advection into the Arctic, not by evaporation from the Arctic Ocean. These findings suggest that most of the winter SIC trends can be attributed to changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulations.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Lindsay ◽  
J. Zhang ◽  
A. Schweiger ◽  
M. Steele ◽  
H. Stern

Abstract The minimum of Arctic sea ice extent in the summer of 2007 was unprecedented in the historical record. A coupled ice–ocean model is used to determine the state of the ice and ocean over the past 29 yr to investigate the causes of this ice extent minimum within a historical perspective. It is found that even though the 2007 ice extent was strongly anomalous, the loss in total ice mass was not. Rather, the 2007 ice mass loss is largely consistent with a steady decrease in ice thickness that began in 1987. Since then, the simulated mean September ice thickness within the Arctic Ocean has declined from 3.7 to 2.6 m at a rate of −0.57 m decade−1. Both the area coverage of thin ice at the beginning of the melt season and the total volume of ice lost in the summer have been steadily increasing. The combined impact of these two trends caused a large reduction in the September mean ice concentration in the Arctic Ocean. This created conditions during the summer of 2007 that allowed persistent winds to push the remaining ice from the Pacific side to the Atlantic side of the basin and more than usual into the Greenland Sea. This exposed large areas of open water, resulting in the record ice extent anomaly.


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