Snow features on sea ice in the western Arctic Ocean during summer 2016

ABSTRACT

Arctic sea ice and its snow cover are important components of the cryosphere and the climate system. A series of in situ snow measurements were conducted during the seventh Chinese Arctic expedition in summer 2016 in the western Arctic Ocean. In this study, we made an analysis of snow features on Arctic sea ice based on in situ observations and the satellite-derived parameter of snow grain size from MODIS spectral reflectance data. Results indicate that snow depth on Arctic sea ice varied between 19 and 241 mm, with a mean value of 100 mm. The mean density of the snow was 340.4 kg/m³ during the expedition, which was higher than that reported in previous literature. The measurements revealed that a depth hoar layer was widely developed in the snow, accounting for 30%∼50% of the total snow depth. The equivalent snow grain size was small on the surface and large at the bottom in snow pits. The average relative error between MODIS-derived snow grain size and in situ measured surface snow grain size is 14.6%, indicating that remote sensing is a promising method to obtain large-scale information of snow grain size on Arctic sea ice.

KEYWORDS:

• Snow cover
• snow grain size
• snow stratigraphy
• remote sensing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.

Geolocation information

The study area in this paper is the western Arctic Ocean, including the Chukchi Sea and the Central Arctic.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China: [grant number 2017YFA0603104], [grant number 2018YFA0605903]; the Special Fund for High Resolution Images Surveying and Mapping Application: [grant number 42-Y30B04-9001-19/21]; the National Natural Science Foundation of China: [grant number 42076235].