Impact of contaminant size and density on their incorporation into sea ice

Alice Pradel (), Rudolf Hufenus, Martin Schneebeli and Denise M. Mitrano ()
Additional contact information
Alice Pradel: ETH Zürich
Rudolf Hufenus: Laboratory of Advanced Fibers
Martin Schneebeli: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF
Denise M. Mitrano: ETH Zürich

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Sea ice accumulates contaminants and redistributes them laterally as the ice drifts and vertically as it melts. Contaminant incorporation into sea ice must be better understood to resolve contaminant cycling and exposure to polar organisms. Here we develop an experimental method that mimics the formation of young sea ice and enables the quantification of model contaminants separately in the ice matrix and brine. Several limitations inherent in field studies are overcome using this approach. Results show that dissolved contaminants ( 1 μm). While high-density particles are depleted in sea ice and low-density particles are enriched relative to their initial concentration in seawater, both are engulfed and can travel in wide brine channels. These results can also help to predict the incorporation of natural species in sea ice.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59608-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-59608-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-59608-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().