At the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) program's field site in the northern Chukchi Sea, snow and ice meltwater flow was found to have a strong impact on the heat and mass balance of sea ice during the summer of 1998. Pathways and rates of meltwater transport were derived from tracer studies (H218O, 7Be, and release of fluorescent dyes), complemented by in situ sea‐ice permeability measurements. It was shown that the balance between meltwater supply at the surface (averaging between 3.5 and 10.5 mm d−1) and ice permeability (between <10−11 and >10−9 m2) determines the retention and pooling of meltwater, which in turn controls ice albedo. We found that the seasonal evolution of first‐year and multiyear ice permeability and surface morphology determine four distinct stages of melt. At the start of the ablation season (stage 1), ponding is widespread and lateral melt flow dominates. Several tens of cubic meters of meltwater per day were found to drain hundreds to thousands of square meters of ice through flaws and permeable zones. Significant formation of underwater ice, composed between <30 and >50% of meteoric water, formed at these drainage sites. Complete removal of snow cover, increase in ice permeability, and reductions in hydraulic gradients driving fluid flow mark stage 2, concurrent with a reduction in pond coverage and albedo. During stage 3, maximum permeabilities were measured, with surface meltwater penetrating to 1 m depth in the ice and convective overturning and desalination found to dominate the lower layers of first‐year and thin multiyear ice. Enhanced fluid flow into flaws and permeable zones was observed to promote ice floe breakup and disintegration, concurrent with increases in pond salinities and 7Be. Advective heat flows of several tens of watts per square meter were derived, promoting widening of ponds and increases in pond coverage. Stage 4 corresponds to freeze‐up. Roughly 40% of the total surface melt was retained by the ice cover within the ice matrix as well as in surface and under‐ice ponds (with a total net retention of 15%). Based on this work, areas of improvement for fully prognostic simulations of ice albedo are identified, calling for parameterizations of sea‐ice permeability and the integration of ice topography and refined ablation schemes into atmosphere‐ice‐ocean models.

Abstract. Snow on Antarctic sea ice plays a complex and highly variable role in air-sea-ice interaction processes and the Earth's climate system. Using data collected mostly during the past 10 years, this paper reviews the following topics: snow thickness and snow type and their geographical and seasonal variations; snow grain size, density, and salinity; frequency of occurrence of slush; thermal conductivity, snow surface temperature, and temperature gradients within snow; and the effect of snow thickness on albedo. Major findings include large regional and seasonal differences in snow properties and thicknesses; the consequences of thicker snow and thinner ice in the Antarctic relative to the Arctic (e.g., the importance of flooding and snow-ice formation); the potential impact of increasing snowfall resulting from global climate change; lower observed values of snow thermal conductivity than those typically used in models; periodic large-scale melt in winter; and the contrast in summer melt processes between the Arctic and the Antarctic. Both climate modeling and remote sensing would benefit by taking account of the differences between the two polar regions. INTRODUCTIONAt maximum extent each year (September-October), sea ice covers a vast area of the Southern Ocean (---19 million km2), attaining latitudes as far north as ---55øS [Gloersen et al., 1992]. In so doing, it profoundly alters the exchange of energy and mass between ocean and atmosphere and forms an integral part of the global climate system. These effects are significantly amplified by the presence of an insulative snow cover which is itself highly variable in thickness and properties. Persistently strong winds redistribute the snow, and its properties [Gordon and Huber, 1990] on snow distribution and properties have only been conducted in the past 5-10 years. These studies are beginning to establish the full significance of snow on Antarctic sea ice as a key component of the global climate system. In this paper we review the major findings. Section 2 is a summary of snow data from five Antarctic sectors (designated by Gloersen et al. [1992]), namely, the Weddell Sea (20øE-60øW), the Indian Ocean (20øE-90øE), the western Pacific Ocean (90øE-160øE), the Ross Sea (160øE-140øW), and the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas (140øW-60øW), as shown in Figure 1. The Indian and western Pacific Ocean sectors are collectively referred to as the East Antarctic sector. Section 3 assesses the significance of snow in the air-sea-ice interaction system. New findings have significant implications for modeling (both physical and biological) and remotesensing studies of Antarctic sea ice. Gaps in our current knowledge are identified. Finally, the possible enhanced role of snow under global warming conditions is examined. Throughout, snow is described using the combined morphological and process-oriented classification of snow types of Colbeck et al. [1990] As a result, thickness may not be directly related to either the frequency or duration of snowfall.Mean snow thi...

[1] Over the past few decades the Arctic sea ice cover has decreased in areal extent. This has altered the solar radiation forcing on the Arctic atmosphere-ice-ocean system by decreasing the surface albedo and allowing more solar heating of the upper ocean. This study addresses how the amount of solar energy absorbed in areas of open water in the Arctic Basin has varied spatially and temporally over the past few decades. A synthetic approach was taken, combining satellite-derived ice concentrations, incident irradiances determined from reanalysis products, and field observations of ocean albedo over the Arctic Ocean and the adjacent seas. Results indicate an increase in the solar energy deposited in the upper ocean over the past few decades in 89% of the region studied. The largest increases in total yearly solar heat input, as much as 4% per year, occurred in the Chukchi Sea and adjacent areas.

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[1] The fluid permeability k of sea ice constrains a broad range of processes, such as the growth and decay of seasonal ice, the evolution of summer ice albedo, and biomass build-up. Such processes are critical to how sea ice and associated ecosystems respond to climate change. However, studies of k and its dependence on brine porosity f and microstructure are sparse. Here we present a multifaceted theory for k(f) which closely captures laboratory and field data. X-ray computed tomography provides an unprecedented look at the brine phase and its connectivity. We find that sea ice displays universal transport properties remarkably similar to crustal rocks, yet over a much narrower temperature range. Our results yield simple parameterizations for fluid transport in terms of temperature and salinity, and permit more realistic representations of sea ice in global climate and biological models. Citation:

[1] As part of a large interdisciplinary study of the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA), we installed more than 135 ice thickness gauges to determine the sea ice mass balance. While installing these gauges during the fall of 1997, we found that much of the multiyear ice cover was only 1 m thick, considerably thinner than expected. Over the course of the yearlong field experiment we monitored the mass balance for a wide variety of ice types, including first-year ice, ponded ice, unponded ice, multiyear ice, hummocks, new ridges, and old ridges. Initial ice thicknesses for these sites ranged from 0.3 to 8 m, and snow depths varied from a few centimeters to more than a meter. However, for all of their differences and variety, these thickness gauges sites shared a common trait: at every site, there was a net thinning of the ice during the SHEBA year. The thin ice found in October 1997 was even thinner in October 1998. The annual cycle of ice thickness was also similar at all sites. There was a steady increase in thickness through the winter that gradually tapered off in the spring. This was followed by a steep drop off in thickness during summer melt and another tapering in late summer and early fall as freeze-up began. Maximum surface melting was in July, while bottom ablation peaked in August. Combining results from the sites, we found an average winter growth of 0.51 m and a summer melt of 1.26 m, which consisted of 0.64 m of surface melt and 0.62 m of bottom melt. There was a weak trend for thicker ice to have less winter growth and greater net loss for the year; however, ice growth was also impacted by the snow depth. Considerable variability was observed between sites in both accretion and ablation. The total accretion during the 9-month growth season ranged from zero for thick ridged ice to more than a meter for young ice. Ponds tended to have a large amount of surface melting, while ridges had considerable bottom ablation.

[1] Linkages between albedo, surface morphology, melt pond distribution, and properties of first-year and multiyear sea ice have been studied at two field sites in the North American Arctic between 1998 and 2001. It is shown that summer sea-ice albedo depends critically on surface melt-pond hydrology, controlled by melt rate, ice permeability, and topography. Remarkable short-term and interannual variability in pond fraction varying by more than a factor of 2 and hence area-averaged albedo (varying between 0.28 and 0.49 over the period of a few days) were observed to be forced by millimeter to centimeter changes in pond water level. Tracer studies show that the depth of the snow cover, by controlling the amount of superimposed ice formation in early summer, critically affects the retention of meltwater at the ice surface and hence affects pond coverage. Ice roughness as determined by deformation and aging processes explains a significant portion of the contrasts in pond coverage and albedo between ice of different ages, suggesting that a reduction in multiyear ice area and sea-ice residence time in the Arctic Ocean is accompanied by large-scale ice albedo decreases. Our work indicates that ice-albedo prediction in large-scale models with conventional methods is inherently difficult, if not impossible. However, a hydrological model, incorporating measured statistics of ice topography, reproduces observed pond features and variability, pointing toward an alternative approach in predicting ice albedo in numerical simulations.

Arctic wintertime sea-ice cores, characterized by a temperature gradient of ؊2 to ؊20°C, were investigated to better understand constraints on bacterial abundance, activity, and diversity at subzero temperatures. With the fluorescent stains 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole 2HCl (DAPI) (for DNA) and 5-cyano-2,3-ditoyl tetrazolium chloride (CTC) (for O 2 -based respiration), the abundances of total, particle-associated (>3-m), freeliving, and actively respiring bacteria were determined for ice-core samples melted at their in situ temperatures (؊2 to ؊20°C) and at the corresponding salinities of their brine inclusions (38 to 209 ppt). Fluorescence in situ hybridization was applied to determine the proportions of Bacteria, Cytophaga-Flavobacteria-Bacteroides (CFB), and Archaea. Microtome-prepared ice sections also were examined microscopically under in situ conditions to evaluate bacterial abundance (by DAPI staining) and particle associations within the brine-inclusion network of the ice. For both melted and intact ice sections, more than 50% of cells were found to be associated with particles or surfaces (sediment grains, detritus, and ice-crystal boundaries). CTC-active bacteria (0.5 to 4% of the total) and cells detectable by rRNA probes (18 to 86% of the total) were found in all ice samples, including the coldest (؊20°C), where virtually all active cells were particle associated. The percentage of active bacteria associated with particles increased with decreasing temperature, as did the percentages of CFB (16 to 82% of Bacteria) and Archaea (0.0 to 3.4% of total cells). These results, combined with correlation analyses between bacterial variables and measures of particulate matter in the ice as well as the increase in CFB at lower temperatures, confirm the importance of particle or surface association to bacterial activity at subzero temperatures. Measuring activity down to ؊20°C adds to the concept that liquid inclusions in frozen environments provide an adequate habitat for active microbial populations on Earth and possibly elsewhere.The constraints on and sustainability of life in frozen environments are of considerable importance in a number of contexts, from polar microbial ecology and astrobiology to cryopreservation and other industrial applications (42). For example, a number of subzero environments, such as Antarctic and Arctic lakes (23,25,38), snow (3), glacial ice (46), and permafrost soils (41), have been investigated as Earth analogs for potential extraterrestrial habitats also at subzero temperatures. To date, fundamental questions underlying the behavior of bacteria in any frozen environment have not been adequately addressed: how do bacteria manage to persist and possibly remain active? At the lowest temperatures observed on Earth, what environmental factors enable and control bacterial survival and even sustained activity?This study focused on Arctic wintertime sea ice, the coldest marine habitat on Earth (temperature range of Ϫ2 to Ϫ35°C) (31) and an important component of polar climate and ecos...