Estimating Arctic sea ice thickness from satellite-based ice history

Abstract

A novel method is presented for estimating Arctic sea ice thickness by reconstructing its growth history from satellite-derived ice motion and concentration data, together with meteorological data. Using observations from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) and AMSR2, virtual sea ice particles were tracked backward in time to determine their formation date and subsequent drift path. Surface heat budget calculations were performed to estimate daily thermodynamic growth at each particle's location from the time of formation. Sea ice thickness was then obtained by scaling the accumulated thermodynamic growth to match upward-looking sonar (ULS) observations. The estimated ice thickness successfully reproduced the seasonal and interannual variability observed in the in situ data, with an RMS error in the daily-mean thickness of 44.0 and 36.3 cm when compared to ULS observations in the Beaufort Sea and Fram Strait, respectively; larger errors are expected in seasonal ice areas such as the Laptev Sea. These results demonstrate that satellite-derived sea ice histories provide a robust basis for estimating sea ice thickness, opening new possibilities for retrieving difficult-to-observe sea ice properties through reconstructions of their historical evolution.