Non-stationary drivers of polar sea ice area

From 2002 through 2008 the secular rate of de-creasing sea ice area in the northern hemi-sphere accelerated by a factor of 18, whereas the secular rate of increasing sea ice area in the southern hemisphere accelerated by a factor of 16, relative to the rates from 1978 through 2007. These were derive...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Natural science (Irvine, Calif.) Calif.), 2011-05, Vol.3 (5), p.351-358
Main Author: Muskett, Reginald R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Marine
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Summary:From 2002 through 2008 the secular rate of de-creasing sea ice area in the northern hemi-sphere accelerated by a factor of 18, whereas the secular rate of increasing sea ice area in the southern hemisphere accelerated by a factor of 16, relative to the rates from 1978 through 2007. These were derived from the daily sea ice area retrieved from the Scanning Multi-channel Mi-crowave Radiometer - Special Sensor Micro-wave/Imager and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observation System. The "annual" cycle of northern and south-ern sea ice areas, the number of days between maxima and minima is 372.4, on average, a fre-quency modulation, with a recurrence interval of 61.7 years. Significant spectral power occurs at the quasi-4-day through 120-day frequencies. The frequency content and modulation of the daily time series' are consistent inter-monthly to inter-seasonal frequencies of solar irradiance, atmospheric-oceanic Rossby waves, length-of- day, and polar motion. This suggests conserva-tion of angular momentum of the atmosphere - sea-ice - ocean system. The near 60-year modulation and analysis of the detrended daily time series of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice areas suggest the accelerations shown by the secular trends are relatively short-lived and reversible within an interval of one-quarter (15-years) to one-half (30-years) of the modulation period.
ISSN:2150-4091
2150-4105
DOI:10.4236/ns.2011.35047