Abstract
Identifying the mechanisms controlling the timing and magnitude of snow accumulation on sea ice is crucial for understanding snow’s net effect on the surface energy budget and sea-ice mass balance. Here, we analyze the role of cyclone activity on the seasonal buildup of snow on Arctic sea ice using model, satellite, and in situ data over 1979–2016. On average, 44% of the variability in monthly snow accumulation was controlled by cyclone snowfall and 29% by sea-ice freeze-up. However, there were strong spatio-temporal differences. Cyclone snowfall comprised ~50% of total snowfall in the Pacific compared to 83% in the Atlantic. While cyclones are stronger in the Atlantic, Pacific snow accumulation is more sensitive to cyclone strength. These findings highlight the heterogeneity in atmosphere-snow-ice interactions across the Arctic, and emphasize the need to scrutinize mechanisms governing cyclone activity to better understand their effects on the Arctic snow-ice system with anthropogenic warming.
Highlights
Identifying the mechanisms controlling the timing and magnitude of snow accumulation on sea ice is crucial for understanding snow’s net effect on the surface energy budget and seaice mass balance
We investigate the broad-scale relationship between cyclone activity and the seasonal build-up of snow on Arctic sea ice in 1979–2016 using reanalysis, in situ, and satellite data
Building on the previous cyclone climatologies[18,19,24], our results show an emergence of two seasonalities split between the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Arctic during the snow accumulation season (September–May) (Figs. 2 and 3)
Summary
Identifying the mechanisms controlling the timing and magnitude of snow accumulation on sea ice is crucial for understanding snow’s net effect on the surface energy budget and seaice mass balance. We analyze the role of cyclone activity on the seasonal buildup of snow on Arctic sea ice using model, satellite, and in situ data over 1979–2016. 1234567890():,; With the shift from thicker, older sea ice to younger, thinner ice in the Arctic[1,2,3], the timing and total accumulation of snow play increasingly important roles in sea-ice mass balance[4,5,6]. We investigate the broad-scale relationship between cyclone activity and the seasonal build-up of snow on Arctic sea ice in 1979–2016 using reanalysis, in situ, and satellite data. We survey the seasonal patterns of cyclone activity and snow depth over the entire Arctic basin and in nine distinct regions (Fig. 1a)
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