A year-round satellite sea-ice thickness record from CryoSat-2

Jack C. Landy (), Geoffrey J. Dawson, Michel Tsamados, Mitchell Bushuk, Julienne C. Stroeve, Stephen E. L. Howell, Thomas Krumpen, David G. Babb, Alexander S. Komarov, Harry D. B. S. Heorton, H. Jakob Belter and Yevgeny Aksenov
Additional contact information
Jack C. Landy: University of Tromsø The Arctic University of Norway
Geoffrey J. Dawson: University of Bristol
Michel Tsamados: University College London
Mitchell Bushuk: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
Julienne C. Stroeve: University College London
Stephen E. L. Howell: Climate Research Division
Thomas Krumpen: Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
David G. Babb: University of Manitoba
Alexander S. Komarov: Meteorological Research Division
Harry D. B. S. Heorton: University College London
H. Jakob Belter: Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
Yevgeny Aksenov: National Oceanography Centre

Nature, 2022, vol. 609, issue 7927, 517-522

Abstract: Abstract Arctic sea ice is diminishing with climate warming1 at a rate unmatched for at least 1,000 years2. As the receding ice pack raises commercial interest in the Arctic3, it has become more variable and mobile4, which increases safety risks to maritime users5. Satellite observations of sea-ice thickness are currently unavailable during the crucial melt period from May to September, when they would be most valuable for applications such as seasonal forecasting6, owing to major challenges in the processing of altimetry data7. Here we use deep learning and numerical simulations of the CryoSat-2 radar altimeter response to overcome these challenges and generate a pan-Arctic sea-ice thickness dataset for the Arctic melt period. CryoSat-2 observations capture the spatial and the temporal patterns of ice melting rates recorded by independent sensors and match the time series of sea-ice volume modelled by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System reanalysis8. Between 2011 and 2020, Arctic sea-ice thickness was 1.87 ± 0.10 m at the start of the melting season in May and 0.82 ± 0.11 m by the end of the melting season in August. Our year-round sea-ice thickness record unlocks opportunities for understanding Arctic climate feedbacks on different timescales. For instance, sea-ice volume observations from the early summer may extend the lead time of skilful August–October sea-ice forecasts by several months, at the peak of the Arctic shipping season.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05058-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:609:y:2022:i:7927:d:10.1038_s41586-022-05058-5

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05058-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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