Ice thickness measurements in the Lincoln Sea and adjacent Arctic Ocean

• Main Authors: Haas, Christian, Hendricks, Stefan, Doble, M
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2006
• Subjects: AWI_SeaIce; Baffin Bay; Electro-magnetic Bird (EM-Bird); EMB; GreenICE; GreenICE2004; GreenICE2004_01; GreenICE2004_02; GreenICE2004_03; GreenICE2004_04; GreenICE2004_05; GreenICE2004_06; GreenICE2004_07; GreenICE2004_08; GreenICE2004_09; GreenICE2004_10; GreenICE2004_11; GreenICE2004_12; GreenICE2004_13; GreenICE2004_14; GreenICE2004_15; GreenICE2004_16; GreenICE2004_17; GreenICE2004_18; GreenICE2004_19; GreenICE2004_20; GreenICE2004_21; GreenICE2004_22; GreenICE2004_23; GreenICE2005; Greenland Arctic Shelf Ice and Climate Experiment; Helicopter; HEM_GRI05_01; HEM_GRI05_02; HEM_GRI05_03; HEM_GRI05_04; HEM_GRI05_05; Lincoln Sea; Sea Ice Physics @ AWI; Annals of Glaciology; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Baffin; Ellesmere Island; Greenland; ice pack; Nares strait; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.738243; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.738243

Results of helicopter-borne electromagnetic measurements of total (ice plus snow) sea-ice thickness performed in May 2004 and 2005 in the Lincoln Sea and adjacent Arctic Ocean up to 86° N are presented. Thickness distributions south of 84° N are dominated by multi-year ice with modal thicknesses of 3.9 m in 2004 and 4.2 m in 2005 (mean thicknesses 4.67 and 5.18 m, respectively). Modal and mean snow thickness on multi-year ice amounted to 0.18 and 0.30 m in 2004, and 0.28 and 0.35 m in 2005. There are also considerable amounts of 0.9-2.2 m thick first-year ice (modal thickness), mostly representing ice formed in the recurring, refrozen Lincoln Polynya. Results are in good agreement with ground-based electromagnetic thickness measurements and with ice types demarcated in satellite synthetic aperture radar imagery. Four drifting buoys deployed in 2004 between 86° N and 84.5° N show a similar pattern of a mean southward drift of the ice pack of 83 ± 18 km between May 2004 and April 2005, towards the coast of Ellesmere Island and Nares Strait. The resulting area decrease of 26% between the buoys and the coast is larger than the observed thickness increase south of 84° N. This points to the importance of shear in a narrow band along the coast, and of ice export through Nares Strait in removing ice from the study region.