Abstract
An ice watch, encompassing visual observation of sea ice conducted from the ship’s bridge, is typically performed on sea-ice oriented research cruises. Ice watch data collected during a decade, 2006-2015, of annual cruises to the Beaufort Sea and Canadian Basin characterizes sea-ice morphology during mid to late summer. Observations not otherwise available on extensive regional scales with remote sensing are highlighted, including stage of melt, floe size and surface topography in summer. The summer ice pack in the Canada Basin is found to be of smaller floe size than found in 1973-1975. A disintegrating ice pack of mainly small floe size covered much on the Canada Basin in 2006-2009 and 2011-2012. Since 2007 the ice in the Canada Basin has experienced more extensive melt, and more advanced stages of melt than in 1973-1975, during the Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment (AIDJEX), and early 1990s. Since 2007, Summer ridge sail heights are lower and ridges less extensive compared to the AIDJEX period.
Highlights
The Beaufort Sea has experienced a dramatic reduction in perennial ice cover
Summer ice melt has increased in the Beaufort Sea, with melt of perennial ice becoming prevalent in the Beaufort Sea in recent years (Perovich et al, 2008; Kwok and Cunningham, 2010; Perovich and Richter-Menge, 2015)
In this paper we describe the morphology of the Canada Basin ice pack since 2006, providing information obtained by visual observation from annual research cruises supporting the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Program
Summary
The Beaufort Sea has experienced a dramatic reduction in perennial ice cover. This is related to transport of ice away from the Chukchi Sea (Nghiem et al, 2007) and Beaufort Sea (Ogi et al, 2008; Hutchings and Rigor, 2012). First year ice is becoming prevalent in the region (Comiso, 2002; Galley et al, 2016), resulting in younger, thinner ice being circulated in the central Beaufort Gyre (Hutchings and Rigor, 2012). In this paper we describe the morphology of the Canada Basin ice pack since 2006, providing information obtained by visual observation from annual research cruises supporting the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Program. Visual observations of ice from airplane or ship are an integral part of sea-ice monitoring for operational and research support These observations provide information about sea-ice morphology that is not obtainable or ambiguous in remotely sensed data. We present 10 years of visual observations collected in the Beaufort Sea during Joint Ocean Ice Surveys (JOIS) on the Louis S.
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