Sea ice research has long been the emphasis of research at the Polar Science Center. Since the Center’s inception following the Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment (AIDJEX), the topic of sea ice has evolved from basic fundamental research to a highlighted role in climate change. From the details of how bubbles in sea ice influence the transmission of light through ice, to the construction of global models, which help us to understand past and future variability, PSC researchers are engaged in a number of sea ice research projects.
Sea Ice
In The News
Last Arctic ice refuge is disappearing
November 12, 2019 – Former UW Arctic Fulbright Chair, Kent Moore with PSC researchers Axel Schweiger, Jinlun Zhang and Mike Steele on how the oldest and thickest Arctic sea ice is disappearing twice as fast as ice in the rest of the Arctic Ocean.
read more »Stronger winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice
A new modeling study conducted by Dr. Jinlun Zhang to be published in the Journal of Climate shows that stronger polar winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice, even in a warming climate.
read more »On thin ice: As Arctic Ocean warms, a scramble to understand its weather
Increasing summer ice melt in the Arctic Ocean could shift global weather patterns and make polar waters more navigable. But scientists say forecasting Arctic ice and weather remains a massive challenge. The prospect of more ice-free water during Arctic Ocean summers has triggered efforts to improve ice and weather forecasts at the top of the world
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Selected Projects
MIZMAS
The overarching goal of the MIZMAS project is to enhance our understanding of MIZ processes and interactions, and to strengthen our prediction capability of future climate change, particularly the changes in both the ITD and the FSD, in the CBS. We propose numerical investigations of the historical and contemporary changes in the sea ice and upper ocean of the CBSMIZ. We also plan to investigate future changes of the CBSMIZ under global warming scenarios. These investigations involve new and potentially transformative theoretical and numerical work to develop, implement, and validate a new coupled ice–ocean Marginal Ice Zone Modeling and Assimilation System (MIZMAS) that will enhance the representation of the unique MIZ processes by incorporating a FSD and corresponding model improvements.
read more »A New Unified Sea Ice Thickness Climate Data Record
This new data set is a concerted effort to collect as many observations of sea ice thickness as possible in one place with consistent formats and with clear and abundant documentation. It will allow the community to better utilize what is now a considerable body of observations from moorings, submarines, aircraft, and satellites.
read more »Arctic Sea Ice Volume Anomaly
The Arctic Sea Ice Volume Anomaly time series is calculated using the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) developed at APL/PSC. Updates will be generated at approximately monthly intervals.
read more »Seasonal Ensemble Forecasts of Arctic Sea Ice
Project investigators aim to improve upon the existing seasonal ensemble forecasting system and use the system to predict sea ice conditions in the arctic and subarctic seas with lead times ranging from two weeks to three seasons.
read more »Impacts of Arctic Storms on Landfast Ice Variations
This project is to examine over 30 years of landfast ice records, cyclone tracks and intensity along with frequency and timing of coastal high wind conditions, nearshore pack ice drift, and coastal weather observations in two representative arctic coastal regions.
read more »Changing Sea Ice and the Bering Sea Ecosystem
The Bering Sea – lying at the northern end of the Pacific Ocean and north of the Aleutian Chain – is the source of over 50% of the total US fish catch and the home to immense populations of birds and marine mammals. This project uses a state-of-the-art numerical ocean-ice model to investigate prior (and predict future) changes in the Bering Sea ice cover and study the impacts of these changes on Bering Sea marine and eco-systems.
read more »Projections of an Ice-Diminished Arctic Ocean – Retrospection and Future Projection
Significant changes in arctic climate have been detected in recent years. One of the most striking changes is the decline of sea ice concurrent with changes in atmospheric circulation and increased surface air temperature.
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Selected Publications
Zhang, J., Y.H. Spitz, M. Steele, C. Ashjian, R. Campbell, & A. Schweiger, Biophysical consequences of a relaxing Beaufort gyre. Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2019GL085990, doi:10.1029/2019gl085990, 2020.
Baxter, I., Ding, Q., Schweiger, A., L’Heureux, M., Baxter, S., Wang, T., . . . Lu, J. (2019). How Tropical Pacific Surface Cooling Contributed to Accelerated Sea Ice Melt from 2007 to 2012 as Ice Is Thinned by Anthropogenic Forcing. Journal of Climate, 32(24), 8583-8602. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0783.1
Moore, G. W. K., Schweiger, A., Zhang, J., & Steele, M., Spatiotemporal variability of sea ice in the arctic’s last ice area. Geophysical Research Letters, 46. DOI: 10.1029/2019GL083722, 2019.
Yang, Q., Mu, L., Wu, X., Liu, J., Zheng, F., Zhang, J., Li, C., 2019. Improving Arctic sea ice seasonal outlook by ensemble prediction using an ice-ocean model. Atmospheric Research, 227, pp. 14-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2019.04.021
Schweiger, A.J., K.R. Wood, and J. Zhang, 2019: Arctic Sea Ice Volume Variability over 1901–2010: A Model-Based Reconstruction. J. of Climate, 32, 4731-4752, https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0008.1
Liu, Z., & Schweiger, A., 2019. Low-level and surface wind jets near sea ice edge in the Beaufort Sea in late autumn. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 6873– 6891. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD029770
Moore, G.W.K., A. Schweiger, J. Zhang, and M. Steele, What caused the remarkable February 2018 North Greenland Polynya? Geophys. Res. Lett., 45, doi:10.1029/
2018GL080902 , 2018.Ding, Q., Schweiger, A., L’Heureux, M., Steig, E. J., Battisti, D. S., Johnson, N. C., Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, E., Po-Chedley, S., Zhang, Q., Harnos, K., Bushuk, M., Markle, B., and Baxter, I. (2018), Fingerprints of internal drivers of Arctic sea ice loss in observations and model simulations. Nature Geoscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0256-8
Zhang, J., A. Schweiger, M. Webster, B. Light, M. Steele, C. Ashjian, R. Campbell, and Y. Spitz, Melt pond conditions on declining Arctic sea ice over 1979-2016: Model development, validation, and results, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 123, doi:10.1029/
2018JC014298 , 2018.Zhang, J., A. Schweiger, M. Webster, B. Light, M. Steele, C. Ashjian, R. Campbell, and Y. Spitz, Melt pond conditions on declining Arctic sea ice over 1979-2016: Model development, validation, and results, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 123, doi:10.1029/
2018JC014298 , 2018.Zhang, J., A. Schweiger, M. Webster, B. Light, M. Steele, C. Ashjian, R. Campbell, and Y. Spitz, Melt pond conditions on declining Arctic sea ice over 1979-2016: Model development, validation, and results, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 123, doi:10.1029/
2018JC014298 , 2018.Zhang, J., Schweiger, A., Webster, M., Light, B., Steele, M., Ashjian, C., Campbell, R., & Y. Spitz (2018), Melt pond conditions on declining Arctic sea ice over 1979–2016: Model development, validation, and results, J. Geophys. Res., Oceans., 123 (11), doi:10.1029/2018JC014298.
Zhang, J., A. Schweiger, M. Webster, B. Light, M. Steele, C. Ashjian, R. Campbell, and Y. Spitz, Melt pond conditions on declining Arctic sea ice over 1979-2016: Model development, validation, and results, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 123, doi:10.1029/
2018JC014298 , 2018.Stern, H., A. Schweiger, J. Zhang, and M. Steele, On reconciling disparate studies of the sea-ice floe size distribution, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 6:49, doi:10.1525/
elementa.304 , 2018.Schweiger, A. J., and J. Zhang (2015), Accuracy of short-term sea ice drift forecasts using a coupled ice-ocean model, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, doi: 10.1002/2015jc011273.
Zhang, J., A. Schweiger, M. Steele, and H. Stern, Sea ice floe size distribution in the marginal ice zone: Theory and numerical experiments, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 120, doi:10.1002/2015JC010770, 2015.
Steele, M., S. Dickinson, J. Zhang, and R.W. Lindsay, Seasonal ice loss in the Beaufort Sea: Toward synchrony and prediction, J. Geophy. Res., 120, 1118-1132, doi:10.1002/2014JC010247, 2015.
Schmidt, G.A. and others including J. Zhang, Configuration and assessment of the GISS ModelE2 contributions to the CMIP5 archive, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 6, no. 2, 141-184, doi:10.1002/2013MS000265, 2014.
Stroeve, J., A. Barrett, M. Serreze, and A. Schweiger (2014), Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness, Cryosphere, 8(5), 1839-1854.
Schweiger, A., R. Lindsay, J. Zhang, M. Steele, H. Stern, R. Kwok, Uncertainty in modeled arctic sea ice volume, J. Geophys. Res., 116, C00D06, doi:10.1029/2011JC007084, 2011.
Lindsay, R. W., 2010: A new sea ice thickness climate data record, Eos, 44, 405–406.
Perovich, D.K., T.C. Grenfell, B. Light, et al.,’ Transpolar observations of the morphological properties of Arctic sea ice’, J. Geophys. Res., 114, 10.1029/2008JC004892, 2009.
Kwok, R., G.F. Cunningham, M. Wensnahan, I. Rigor, H.J. Zwally, and D. Yi,’ Thinning and volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover: 2003-2008′, J. Geophys. Res., 114, doi:10.1029/2009JC005312, 2009.
Rampal, P., J. Weiss, D. Marsan, R. Lindsay, and H. Stern, 2008, Scaling properties of sea ice deformation from buoy dispersion analysis, J. Geophys. Res., 113, C03002, doi:10.1029/2007JC004143.
Lindsay, R.W., J. Zhang, A. Schweiger, and M.A. Steele, Seasonal predictions of ice extent in the Arctic Ocean, J. Geophys. Res., 113, C02023, doi:10.1029/2007JC004259, 2008.