Impact of ice cover in the Arctic on ocean–atmosphere turbulent heat fluxes

Abstract

The impact of spatiotemporal variability of the ice-covered area in the Arctic on the value and interannual dynamics of turbulent heat fluxes on the ocean–atmosphere border is considered. An expected inverse dependence of the heat fluxes integrated over the Arctic area and the area of ice is not detected. The largest interannual oscillations of heat fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere are timed to the varying position of the ice edge and, to a lesser extent, are connected with total area of ice. The role of the marginal ice zone in oceanic heat transfer is analyzed. In particular, it is shown that while moving along the marginal zone from the ice-free surface to the surface with an ice concentration of 0.8, latent and sensible heat fluxes are reduced by a factor of 2.5–3.