The seasonal cycle and break-up of landfast sea ice along the northwest coast of Kotelny Island, East Siberian Sea

• Published in: Journal of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Mengxi Zhai, Bin Cheng, Matti Leppäranta, Fengming Hui, Xinqing Li, Denis Demchev, Ruibo Lei, Xiao Cheng
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press 2022
• Subjects: Arctic Ocean; ice break-up; landfast sea ice; remote sensing; thermodynamic model; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Arctic; East Siberian Sea; Journal of Glaciology; Kotelny Island; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2021.85; https://doaj.org/article/ac707c970a82461f87c03c3bef9ab3d3

Arctic landfast sea ice (LFSI) represents an important quasi-stationary coastal zone. Its evolution is determined by the regional climate and bathymetry. This study investigated the seasonal cycle and interannual variations of LFSI along the northwest coast of Kotelny Island. Initial freezing, rapid ice formation, stable and decay stages were identified in the seasonal cycle based on application of the visual inspection approach (VIA) to MODIS/Envisat imagery and results from a thermodynamic snow/ice model. The modeled annual maximum ice thickness in 1995–2014 was 2.02 ± 0.12 m showing a trend of −0.13 m decade−1. Shortened ice season length (−22 d decade−1) from model results associated with substantial spring (2.3°C decade−1) and fall (1.9°C decade−1) warming. LFSI break-up resulted from combined fracturing and melting, and the local spatiotemporal patterns of break-up were associated with the irregular bathymetry. Melting dominated the LFSI break-up in the nearshore sheltered area, and the ice thickness decreased to an average of 0.50 m before the LFSI disappeared. For the LFSI adjacent to drift ice, fracturing was the dominant process and the average ice thickness was 1.56 m at the occurrence of the fracturing. The LFSI stages detected by VIA were supported by the model results.