| Summary: | The lowest latitude sea ice in the world (excluding coastal freezing) is in the southern Sea of Okhotsk (south of 46°N), where it has significant impacts on freshwater input and primary production. This region is subject to climate change, and accordingly the monitoring of sea ice conditions is important. However, the interannual variability of the region’s sea ice is poorly understood due to its logistical challenges. Sea ice observations have been conducted in this region every winter for the period 1996-2020. The interannual variability of the ice conditions and the likely factors responsible for it were investigated using visual observations following the international ASPeCt protocol, combined with satellite SSM/I-SSMIS ice concentration data (1988-2020). AMSR-derived ice drift data sets and ERA5 meteorological reanalysis data sets were also analyzed to examine the effects of dynamic and thermodynamic processes. Our analysis revealed that 1) sea ice area in this region varies differently from that in the central and northern Sea of Okhotsk, where decreasing trends are reported, 2) sea ice volume has remarkable interannual variation and the peaks appeared much to more affected by dynamically deformed ice than freezing conditions, and 3) prominently deformed ice can be explained by taking shear components into account based on sea ice rheology. These results suggest the importance of including the proper sea ice rheology in numerical sea ice models to reproduce the realistic sea ice volume and deformation processes, and thereby the realistic primary production for all seasonal ice zones.
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