Snow redistribution onto young sea ice: Observations and implications for climate models
Vertical heat conduction through young ice is a major source of wintertime sea ice growth in the Arctic. However, field observations indicate that young ice preferentially accumulates wind-blown snow, resulting in greater snow thickness on young ice than would be expected from precipitation alone, a...
Published in: | Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene |
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Language: | English |
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00115 |
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ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_25738 2024-04-14T08:05:00+00:00 Snow redistribution onto young sea ice: Observations and implications for climate models Clemens-Sewall, David (author) Smith, Madison M. (author) Holland, Marika M. (author) Polashenski, Chris (author) Perovich, Don (author) 2022-09-08 https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00115 en eng Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene--2325-1026 Helicopter-borne thermal infrared sea ice surface temperature images during the MOSAiC expedition, NetCDF format--10.1594/PANGAEA.934658 Snow thickness measurements on young ice in the Central Arctic during the 2019-2020 Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate expedition--10.18739/A2XK84R5C Raw files for broadband and spectral albedo measurements of the sea ice surface during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) campaign in the Central Arctic Ocean, April – September 2020--10.18739/A2ZG6G81T articles:25738 doi:10.1525/elementa.2021.00115 ark:/85065/d7q81hv6 Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. article Text 2022 ftncar https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00115 2024-03-21T18:00:26Z Vertical heat conduction through young ice is a major source of wintertime sea ice growth in the Arctic. However, field observations indicate that young ice preferentially accumulates wind-blown snow, resulting in greater snow thickness on young ice than would be expected from precipitation alone, and hence greater snow thickness on young ice than climate models represent. As snow has a low thermal conductivity, this additional snow thickness due to redistribution will reduce the actual heat conduction. We present new observations from the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate Expedition which show that young ice rapidly accumulates a snow thickness of 2.5–8 cm, when wind-blown snow is available from the nearby mature ice. By applying a simple redistribution scheme and heat flux model to simulated conditions from the Community Earth System Model 2.0, we suggest that neglecting this snow redistribution onto young ice could result in the potential overestimation of conductive heat flux—and hence ice growth rates—by 3–8% on average in the Arctic in the winter in the absence of climate feedbacks. The impacts of snow redistribution are highest in the springtime and in coastal regions. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Sea ice OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Arctic Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 10 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
description |
Vertical heat conduction through young ice is a major source of wintertime sea ice growth in the Arctic. However, field observations indicate that young ice preferentially accumulates wind-blown snow, resulting in greater snow thickness on young ice than would be expected from precipitation alone, and hence greater snow thickness on young ice than climate models represent. As snow has a low thermal conductivity, this additional snow thickness due to redistribution will reduce the actual heat conduction. We present new observations from the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate Expedition which show that young ice rapidly accumulates a snow thickness of 2.5–8 cm, when wind-blown snow is available from the nearby mature ice. By applying a simple redistribution scheme and heat flux model to simulated conditions from the Community Earth System Model 2.0, we suggest that neglecting this snow redistribution onto young ice could result in the potential overestimation of conductive heat flux—and hence ice growth rates—by 3–8% on average in the Arctic in the winter in the absence of climate feedbacks. The impacts of snow redistribution are highest in the springtime and in coastal regions. |
author2 |
Clemens-Sewall, David (author) Smith, Madison M. (author) Holland, Marika M. (author) Polashenski, Chris (author) Perovich, Don (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
Snow redistribution onto young sea ice: Observations and implications for climate models |
spellingShingle |
Snow redistribution onto young sea ice: Observations and implications for climate models |
title_short |
Snow redistribution onto young sea ice: Observations and implications for climate models |
title_full |
Snow redistribution onto young sea ice: Observations and implications for climate models |
title_fullStr |
Snow redistribution onto young sea ice: Observations and implications for climate models |
title_full_unstemmed |
Snow redistribution onto young sea ice: Observations and implications for climate models |
title_sort |
snow redistribution onto young sea ice: observations and implications for climate models |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00115 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Sea ice |
op_relation |
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene--2325-1026 Helicopter-borne thermal infrared sea ice surface temperature images during the MOSAiC expedition, NetCDF format--10.1594/PANGAEA.934658 Snow thickness measurements on young ice in the Central Arctic during the 2019-2020 Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate expedition--10.18739/A2XK84R5C Raw files for broadband and spectral albedo measurements of the sea ice surface during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) campaign in the Central Arctic Ocean, April – September 2020--10.18739/A2ZG6G81T articles:25738 doi:10.1525/elementa.2021.00115 ark:/85065/d7q81hv6 |
op_rights |
Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00115 |
container_title |
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1796301890769649664 |