sea ice

sea ice, frozen seawater in the Arctic Ocean and its adjacent seas as far south as China and Japan and in the Southern Ocean and its adjacent seas surrounding Antarctica. Most sea ice occurs as pack ice, which is very mobile, drifting across the ocean surface under the influence of the wind and ocean currents and moving vertically under the influence of tides, waves, and swells. There is also landfast ice, or fast ice, which is immobile, since it is either attached directly to the coast or seafloor or locked in place between grounded icebergs. Fast ice grows in place by freezing of seawater or by pack ice becoming attached to the shore, seafloor, or icebergs. Fast ice moves up and down in response to tides, waves, and swells, and pieces may break off and become part of the pack ice. A third type of sea ice, known as marine ice, forms far below the ocean surface at the bottom of ice shelves in Antarctica. Occasionally seen in icebergs that calve from the ice shelves, marine ice can appear green due to organic matter in the ice.

Sea ice undergoes large seasonal changes in extent as the ocean freezes and the ice cover expands in the autumn and winter, followed by a period of melting and retreat in the spring and summer. Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent typically ranges from approximately 8 million square km in September to approximately 15 million square km in March. (One square kilometre equals approximately 0.4 square mile.) Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent ranges from approximately 4 million square km in February to approximately 20 million square km in September. Fourteen of the lowest minimum sea ice extent measurements for the Arctic in the satellite era have occurred between 2006 and 2020. In September 2012 the minimum sea ice extent in the Northern Hemisphere declined to roughly 3.41 million square km, a figure more than 50 percent below mean sea ice coverage for that time of year. That was the lowest minimum since record keeping began in 1979. In March 2015 the maximum sea ice extent in the Northern Hemisphere fell to approximately 14.5 million square km, the lowest maximum since record keeping began. Globally, the minimum and maximum sea ice extents are about 10 million square km and 28 million square km, respectively. Measured routinely using data obtained from orbiting satellite instruments, the minimum and maximum sea ice extent figures vary annually and by decade. These figures are important factors for understanding polar and global climatic variation and change.

Sea ice formation and features

Sea ice that is not more than one winter old is known as first-year ice. Sea ice that survives one or more summers is known as multiyear ice. Most Antarctic sea ice is first-year pack ice. Multiyear ice is common in the Arctic, where most of it occurs as pack ice in the Arctic Ocean.

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Pack ice is made up of many individual pieces of ice known as cakes, if they are less than 20 metres (about 66 feet) across, and floes, which vary from small (20–100 metres [about 66–330 feet] across) to giant (greater than 10 km [about 6 miles] across). As the ice drifts, it often breaks apart, and open water appears within fractures and leads. Leads are typically linear features that are widespread in the pack ice at any time of year, extend for hundreds of kilometres, and vary from a few metres to hundreds of metres in width. In winter, leads freeze quickly. Both new and young ice are often thickened mechanically by rafting and ridging, when they are compressed between thicker floes. A pressure ridge is composed of a sail above the waterline and a keel below. In the Arctic most keels are 10–25 metres (about 33–80 feet) deep and typically four times the sail height. Keel widths are typically 2–3 times the sail width. Antarctic pressure ridges are less massive than Arctic pressure ridges. Though they only make up about 25 percent of the total ice area in both polar regions, approximately 40–60 percent of the total ice mass is contained within pressure ridges.

Ice crystals growing on the ocean surface typically break down quickly into smaller pieces that form a soupy suspension known as frazil or grease ice. Under calm conditions the crystals freeze together to form a continuous sheet of new ice called nilas. It is up to 10 cm (about 4 inches) thick and looks dark gray. As the sheet ice thickens by freezing at the bottom, it becomes young ice that is gray to grayish white and up to 30 cm (about 1 foot) thick. If new and young ice are not deformed into rafts or ridges, they will continue to grow by a bottom-freezing process known as congelation. Congelation ice, with its distinctive columnar crystal texture due to the downward growth of the ice crystals into the water, is very common in Arctic pack ice and fast ice.

Under more turbulent conditions, when the water is disturbed by wind and waves, frazil crystals agglomerate into discs known as pancakes. As they grow from a few centimetres to a few metres across, they solidify and thicken mechanically by rafting on top of each other. Pancakes freeze together to form cakes and floes, which contain a large amount of ice with a granular texture. The “frazil-pancake cycle,” though it occurs in both hemispheres, is particularly important in Antarctica, where it accounts for the rapid expansion of ice cover during the autumn and winter. Consequently, Antarctic ice floes generally contain a larger amount of granular ice and a smaller amount of columnar ice than Arctic ice floes.

Frazil, grease, and pancake ice formation also occur in polynyas. Polynyas are recurrent features that remain partially or totally ice-free in areas normally expected to be covered with sea ice. They are particularly common in Antarctica, where katabatic winds blowing off the continent force the ice at the coast away from shore, leaving the ocean surface ice-free and open to further ice growth. Ice formation and removal can be almost continuous in coastal polynyas. Consequently, they are sometimes referred to as “ice factories.”

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Antarctic ice floes also contain a significant amount of granular ice because the weight of snow is often sufficient to depress the ice surface below sea level, soaking the base of the snow with seawater and producing a slush. When the slush freezes, a layer of granular snow ice is added near the top of the floes.

Platelet ice is perhaps the most exotic form of sea ice besides marine ice. In Antarctica, where cold, relatively low-salinity seawater flows out from beneath ice shelves, platelet ice grows both in the water column and at the bottom of the sea ice on the ocean surface. Whereas platelet ice has been found frozen into pack ice floes, it is most common in fast ice such as the type found in McMurdo Sound. In the Arctic, platelet ice grows primarily in pools of low-salinity water. These pools form at the base of ice floes during the summer months from meltwater runoff.

Ice salinity, temperature, and ecological interactions

As seawater freezes and ice forms, liquid brine and air are trapped within a matrix of pure ice crystals. Solid salt crystals subsequently precipitate in pockets of brine within the ice. The brine volume and chemical composition of the solid salts are temperature-dependent.

Liquid ocean water has an average salinity of 35 parts per thousand. New ice such as nilas has the highest average salinity (12–15 parts per thousand); as ice grows thicker during the course of the winter, the average salinity of the entire ice thickness decreases as brine is lost from the ice. Brine loss occurs by temperature-dependent brine pocket migration, brine expulsion, and, most importantly, by gravity drainage via a network of cells and channels. At the end of winter, Arctic first-year ice has an average salinity of 4–6 parts per thousand. Antarctic first-year ice is more saline, perhaps because ice growth rates are more rapid than in the Arctic, and granular ice traps more brine.

In summer, gravity drainage of brine increases as the ice temperature and permeability increase. In the Arctic, summer gravity drainage is enhanced by flushing, as snow and ice meltwater percolate into the ice. Consequently, after a few summers the ice at the surface is completely desalinated and the average salinity of Arctic multiyear ice drops to 3–4 parts per thousand. Antarctic multiyear ice is more saline because the snow rarely melts completely at the ice surface, and brine flushing is uncommon. Instead of percolating into the ice, snow meltwater refreezes onto the ice surface, forming a layer of hard, glassy ice. In contrast, even though it forms from platelets in seawater, marine ice contains little or no salt. The reasons for this remain unclear, but possible explanations include the densification of the ice crystals or their desalination by convection within the “mushy” crystal layer.

Because sea ice is porous and permeable and the brine held within it contains nutrients, sea ice often harbours rich and complex ecosystems. Viruses, bacteria, algae, fungi, and protozoans inhabit sea ice, taking advantage of the differences in salinity, temperature, and light levels. Algae are perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the sea ice ecosystem because they are pigmented and darken the ice. Algae are found at the top, bottom, and interior of Antarctic sea ice; however, they are found primarily at the bottom of Arctic sea ice, where they can occur as strands many metres in length. Sea ice algae are important as a concentrated food source for krill and other zooplankton. Melting sea ice rich in algae may also be important for seeding phytoplankton blooms in the previously ice-covered ocean.

Pack ice drift and thickness

The large-scale drift of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is dominated by the Beaufort Gyre (a roughly circular current flowing clockwise within the surface waters of the Beaufort Sea in the western or North American Arctic) and the Transpolar Drift (the major current flowing into the Atlantic Ocean from the eastern or Eurasian Arctic). The clockwise rotation of the Beaufort Gyre and the movement of the Transpolar Drift, the result of large-scale atmospheric circulation, are dominated by a high-pressure centre over the western Arctic Ocean. The pattern is not constant but varies in both strength and position about every decade or so, as the high-pressure centre weakens and moves closer to both Alaska and the Canadian Arctic. This decadal shift in the high-pressure centre is known as the Arctic Oscillation.

The Transpolar Drift exports large volumes of ice from the Arctic Ocean south through Fram Strait and along the east coast of Greenland into the North Atlantic Ocean. Ice drift speeds, determined from buoys placed on the ice, average 10–15 km (about 6–9 miles) per day in the Fram Strait. Ice can drift in the Beaufort Gyre for as much as seven years at rates that vary between zero at the centre to an average of 4–5 km (about 2.5–3 miles) per day at the edge. Together, the Beaufort Gyre and Transpolar Drift strongly influence the Arctic Ocean ice thickness distribution, which has been determined largely from submarine sonar measurements of the ice draft. Ice draft is a measurement of the ice thickness below the waterline and often serves as a close proxy for total ice thickness. The average draft increases from about 1 metre (about 3 feet) near the Eurasian coast to 6–8 metres (about 20–26 feet) along the coasts of north Greenland and the Canadian Arctic islands, where the ice is heavily ridged.

In Antarctica the large-scale sea circulation is dominated by westward motion along the coast and eastward motion farther offshore in the West Wind Drift (also known as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current). The average drift speed is 20 km (about 12 miles) per day in the westward flow and 15 km (about 9 miles) per day in the eastward flow. Where katabatic winds force the ice away from the coast and create polynyas, local sea ice motion is roughly perpendicular to the shore. There are gyres in the Ross Sea and Weddell Sea where the westward-moving ice is deflected to the north and meets the eastward-moving ice further offshore. Unlike the Beaufort Gyre in the Arctic Ocean, these gyres do not appear to recirculate ice. Ice thickness data from drilling on floes, visual estimates by observers on ships, and a few moored sonars indicate that Antarctic sea ice is thinner than Arctic sea ice. Typically, Antarctic first-year ice is less than 1 metre (about 3 feet) thick, while multiyear ice is less than 2 metres (about 6.5 feet) thick.

Interactions with the oceans, atmosphere, and climate

The growth and decay of sea ice influences local, regional, and global climate through interactions with the atmosphere and ocean. Whereas snow-covered sea ice is an effective insulator that restricts heat loss from the relatively warm ocean to the colder atmosphere, there is significant turbulent heat and mass transfer from leads and polynyas to the ocean and atmosphere during the winter months. These losses are manifested as frost smoke from evaporation and condensation at the water surface, and they affect atmospheric processes hundreds of metres above and hundreds of kilometres downstream from leads and polynyas. Brine rejected from ice growing within leads and polynyas drives the deep mixing of the ocean. Rejected brine also affects global ocean circulation and ventilation processes by increasing the salt concentration of the water it is released into. The conversion of both new and young ice into pressure ridges creates rough top and bottom surfaces that enhance the transfer of momentum from the atmosphere to the ocean. Ridges at the ice surface act as sails and catch the wind. The subsequent movement of the ice floes transfers energy to the underlying water via the keels on the underside of the ice.

Snow and ice reduce the amount of solar radiation available for organisms residing in the ice and water. This decrease in the amount of available energy affects and often reduces the productivity of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Snow has a high albedo (it reflects a significant proportion of solar shortwave radiation back to the atmosphere), and thus the temperature at the surface remains cool. In the Arctic the surface albedo decreases in summer as the snow melts completely, ponds of meltwater form on the ice surface that absorb a greater share of incoming shortwave radiation, and the overall ice concentration (the ratio of ice area to open water area) decreases. The increase in shortwave radiation absorption by meltwater ponds and the open ocean accelerates the melting process and further reduces surface albedo. This ice-albedo positive feedback plays a key role in the interaction of sea ice with climate.

The emerging impacts of recent changes to sea ice

Submarine sonar data obtained since 1958 have revealed that the average ice draft in the Arctic Ocean in the 1990s decreased by over 1 metre (about 3 feet) and that ice volume was 40 percent lower than during the period 1958–76. The greatest ice draft reduction occurred in the central and eastern Arctic. Remote sensing also revealed a reduction of 3 percent per decade in Arctic sea ice extent from 1978, with particularly rapid losses occurring from the late 1980s. This included the eastern Arctic, where both the ice concentration and the duration of the ice-covered season also decreased. Computer simulations suggest that sea ice changes in this region were due to changes in atmospheric circulation, and thus ice dynamics, rather than higher air temperatures. Yet it is not clear whether these changes are due to natural variability—i.e., the Arctic Oscillation—or whether they represent a regime shift that will persist and perhaps become even more severe in the future.

Since computer models of climate change predict that the consequences of global warming will occur earlier and be most pronounced in the polar regions, particularly the Arctic, monitoring and understanding the behaviour of sea ice are important. Continued reductions of Arctic sea ice extent could have potentially severe ecological impacts. One such event may have arisen in western Hudson Bay, Canada, where a significant decline in the physical condition and reproductive success of polar bears occurred as the duration and extent of sea ice cover decreased during the 1980s and ’90s. On the other hand, a reduction in sea ice could be advantageous for oil and mineral exploration, production, and transport and for navigation through the Northern Sea Route (Northeast Passage), a water route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans along the northern coast of Europe and Russia, and the Northwest Passage, a similar route along the northern coast of North America.

Whaling records suggest that Antarctic sea ice extent decreased by approximately 25 percent between the mid-1950s and early 1970s, whereas ice core samples suggest a 20 percent decrease in sea ice extent since 1950. Since then, remote sensing data have indicated an increase in Antarctic sea ice extent parallel to the decrease in Arctic sea ice extent through the 1980s and ’90s. Yet the increase in Antarctic sea ice extent has not been uniformly distributed. A reduction in sea ice extent west of the Antarctic Peninsula has been correlated with slight declines in Adélie penguin numbers and a significant rise in the Chinstrap penguin population. There is speculation that if ice extent continues to decrease in this region, krill numbers will diminish significantly as they lose their under-ice habitat and face growing competition from salps.