Ice and Snow Thickness Variability and Change in the High Arctic Ocean Observed by In Situ Measurements

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Haas, Christian, Beckers, Justin, King, Josh, Silis, Arvids, Stroeve, Julienne, Wilkinson, Jeremy, Notenboom, Bernice, Schweiger, Axel, Hendricks, Stefan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Ellesmere Island; Lincoln Sea; North Pole; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/45774/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/45774/2/grl56535.pdf; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/45774/3/grl56535-sup-0001-2017GL075434-SI.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075434; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.51862; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.51862.d002; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.51862.d003

In April 2017, we collected unique, extensive in situ data of sea ice and snow thickness. At 10 sampling sites, located under a CryoSat-2 overpass, between Ellesmere Island and 87.1°N mean and modal total ice thicknesses ranged between 2 to 3.4 m and 1.8 to 2.9 m, respectively. Coincident snow thicknesses ranged between 0.3 to 0.47 m (mean) and 0.1 to 0.5 m (mode). The profile spanned the complete multiyear ice zone in the Lincoln Sea, into the first-year ice zone farther north. Complementary snow thickness measurements near the North Pole showed a mean thickness of 0.31 m. Compared with scarce measurements from other years, multiyear ice was up to 0.75 m thinner than in 2004, but not significantly different from 2011 and 2014. We found excellent agreement with a commonly used snow climatology and with published long-term ice thinning rates. There was reasonable agreement with CryoSat-2 thickness retrievals.