The Arctic Subpolar gyre sTate Estimate (ASTE): Description and assessment of a data-constrained, dynamically consistent ocean-sea ice estimate for 2002-2017

Abstract

The Arctic region has experienced large changes in recent decades. These include near-surface air temperature warming at twice the global rate (Richter-Menge & Jeffries, 2011), rapid decline in multi-year sea ice (Kwok & Cunningham, 2015), enhanced solar radiation absorption in the Western Arctic upper ocean (Timmermans et al., 2018), increased river and glacial discharge (Bamber et al., 2012(Bamber et al., , 2018Proshutinsky et al., 2020), and increased influxes of freshwater from the Pacific (Woodgate, 2018) and heat from the Atlantic (Polyakov et al., 2011). Many of these changes have been suggested to trigger positive feedbacks.