Large-scale surveys of snow depth on Arctic sea ice from Operation IceBridge

We show the first results of a large‐scale survey of snow depth on Arctic sea ice from NASA's Operation IceBridge snow radar system for the 2009 season and compare the data to climatological snow depth values established over the 1954–1991 time period. For multiyear ice, the mean radar derived...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2011-10, Vol.38 (20), p.n/a
Main Authors: Kurtz, Nathan T., Farrell, Sinead L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
altimetry
Climatology
Consistency
Cryosphere
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
Marine
NASA
Ponds
Radar
Remote sensing
Sea ice
Seasons
Snow
snow depth
Surveys
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Summary:We show the first results of a large‐scale survey of snow depth on Arctic sea ice from NASA's Operation IceBridge snow radar system for the 2009 season and compare the data to climatological snow depth values established over the 1954–1991 time period. For multiyear ice, the mean radar derived snow depth is 33.1 cm and the corresponding mean climatological snow depth is 33.4 cm. The small mean difference suggests consistency between contemporary estimates of snow depth with the historical climatology for the multiyear ice region of the Arctic. A 16.5 cm mean difference (climatology minus radar) is observed for first year ice areas suggesting that the increasingly seasonal sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean has led to an overall loss of snow as the region has transitioned away from a dominantly multiyear ice cover. Key Points Snow depth on multiyear ice is consistent with historical climatological values Snow depth on first year ice is ~50% of the climatological values There has been a large loss of snow on sea ice due to the loss of multiyear ice
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2011GL049216