The eastern Arctic Ocean’s winter ice grew less than half as much as normal during the past decade, due to the growing influence of heat from the ocean’s interior, researchers have found.
The finding came from an international study led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Finnish Meteorological Institute. The study, published in the Journal of Climate, used data collected by ocean moorings in the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean from 2003-2018.
The moorings measured the heat released from the ocean interior to the upper ocean and sea ice during winter. In 2016-2018, the estimated heat flux was about 10 watts per square meter, which is enough to prevent 80-90 centimeters (almost 3 feet) of sea ice from forming each year. Previous heat flux measurements were about half of that much.
“In the past, when weighing the contribution of atmosphere and ocean to melting sea ice in the Eurasian Basin, the atmosphere led,” said Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center and FMI. “Now for the first time, ocean leads. That’s a big change.”
Read more at University Of Alaska Fairbanks
Photo: Large yellow floats connected to several scientific sensors are lowered over the edge of a ship in the Arctic Ocean. Photo courtesy of the Nansen and Amundsen Basins Observational System