Assessment of summer 2018-2019 sea-ice forecasts for the Southern Ocean

• Main Authors: Massonnet, F, Reid, P, Lieser, JL, Bitz, CM, Fyfe, J, Hobbs, W
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre 2019
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Oceanography; Physical Oceanography; Arctic; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.25959/100.00029984; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/132448

Being much thinner than Arctic sea ice and almost entirely seasonal, Antarctic sea ice haslong been considered unpredictable beyond weather time scales. However, recentstudies have unveiled several mechanisms of sea-ice predictability at seasonal time scales(Holland et al., 2017; Marchi et al., 2018; Holland et al., 2013). The study of sea-icepredictability does not only represent an academic exercise but has also many potentialfuture applications. For example, knowledge of sea-ice presence from weeks to months inadvance would be of great interest, since sea ice is one of the many hindrances that facevessels operating in the Antarctic coastal regions. In that context, advance notice ofseasonal sea-ice conditions would help reduce costs associated with providing alternativeoperational logistics.