Description: We examine CMIP6 simulations of Arctic sea‐ice area and volume. We find that CMIP6 models produce a wide spread of mean Arctic sea‐ice area, capturing the observational estimate within the multi‐model ensemble spread. The CMIP6 multi‐model ensemble mean provides a more realistic estimate of the sensitivity of September Arctic sea‐ice area to a given amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and to a given amount of global warming, compared with earlier CMIP experiments. Still, most CMIP6 models fail to simulate at the same time a plausible evolution of sea‐ice area and of global mean surface temperature. In the vast majority of the available CMIP6 simulations, the Arctic Ocean becomes practically sea‐ice free (sea‐ice area 〈 1 million km2) in September for the first time before the year 2050 in each of the four emission scenarios SSP1‐1.9, SSP1‐2.6, SSP2‐4.5 and SSP5‐8.5 examined here.

Description: Arctic sea ice is shifting from a year-round to a seasonal sea ice cover. This substantial transformation, via a reduction in Arctic sea ice extent and a thinning of its thickness, influences the amount of light entering the upper ocean. This in turn impacts under-ice algal growth and associated ecosystem dynamics. Field campaigns have provided valuable insights as to how snow and ice properties impact light penetration at fixed locations in the Arctic, but to understand the spatial variability in the under-ice light field there is a need to scale up to the pan-Arctic level. Combining information from satellites with state-of-the-art parameterizations is one means to achieve this. This study combines satellite and modeled data products to map under-ice light on a monthly time-scale from 2011 through 2018. Key limitations pertain to the availability of satellite-derived sea ice thickness, which for radar altimetry, is only available during the sea ice growth season. We clearly show that year-to-year variability in snow depth, along with the fraction of thin ice, plays a key role in how much light enters the Arctic Ocean. This is particularly significant in April, which in some regions, coincides with the beginning of the under-ice algal bloom, whereas we find that ice thickness is the main driver of under-ice light availability at the end of the melt season in October. The extension to the melt season due to a warmer Arctic means that snow accumulation has reduced, which is leading to positive trends in light transmission through snow. This, combined with a thinner ice cover, should lead to increased under-ice PAR also in the summer months.

Description: The Arctic sea-ice-scape is rapidly transforming. Increasing light penetration will initiate earlier seasonal primary production. This earlier growing season may be accompanied by an increase in ice algae and phytoplankton biomass, augmenting the emission of dimethylsulfide and capture of carbon dioxide. Secondary production may also increase on the shelves, although the loss of sea ice exacerbates the demise of sea-ice fauna, endemic fish and megafauna. Sea-ice loss may also deliver more methane to the atmosphere, but warmer ice may release fewer halogens, resulting in fewer ozone depletion events. The net changes in carbon drawdown are still highly uncertain. Despite large uncertainties in these assessments, we expect disruptive changes that warrant intensified long-term observations and modelling efforts.

Description: Historical sea ice core chlorophyll-a (Chla) data are used to describe the seasonal, regional, and vertical distribution of ice algal biomass in Antarctic landfast sea ice. The analyses are based on the Antarctic Fast Ice Algae Chlorophyll-a data set, a compilation of currently available sea ice Chla data from landfast sea ice cores collected at circum-Antarctic nearshore locations between 1970 and 2015. Ice cores were typically sampled from thermodynamically grown first-year ice and have thin snow depths (mean=0.0520.097m). The data set comprises 888 ice cores, including 404 full vertical profile cores. Integrated ice algal Chla biomass (range: 〈0.1-219.9mg/m(2), median=4.4mg/m(2), interquartile range=9.9mg/m(2)) peaks in late spring and shows elevated levels in autumn. The seasonal Chla development is consistent with the current understanding of physical drivers of ice algal biomass, including the seasonal cycle of irradiance and surface temperatures driving landfast sea ice growth and melt. Landfast ice regions with reported platelet ice formation show maximum ice algal biomass. Ice algal communities in the lowermost third of the ice cores dominate integrated Chla concentrations during most of the year, but internal and surface communities are important, particularly in winter. Through comparison of biomass estimates based on different sea ice sampling strategies, that is, analysis of full cores versus bottom-ice section sampling, we identify biases in common sampling approaches and provide recommendations for future survey programs: for example, the need to sample fast ice over its entire thickness and to measure auxiliary physicochemical parameters. Plain Language Summary Antarctic sea ice is a key driver of physical, chemical, and biological processes in the Southern Ocean. Importantly, sea ice serves as a substrate for microscopic algae which grow in the bottom, interior, and surface layers of the ice. These algae are considered an important food source for Antarctic marine food webs. Using a newly collated database of historical sea ice core chlorophyll-a data (a proxy for ice algal biomass) from coastal sites, we describe the seasonal and vertical variability of algal biomass in Antarctic landfast sea ice. The seasonal chlorophyll-a development is consistent with the current understanding of physical drivers of ice algal biomass, including the seasonal cycle of irradiance and surface temperatures driving landfast sea ice growth and melt. Our analyses show that algae in the lowermost third of ice cores drive the annual cycle of integrated biomass, but internal and surface communities are also important. Through comparison of biomass estimates based on different sea ice sampling strategies, that is, analysis of full cores versus bottom-ice section sampling, we identify biases in common sampling approaches and provide recommendations for future survey programs: for example, the need to sample fast ice over its entire thickness and to measure auxiliary physical parameters, in particular snow-thickness data.

Description: Given rapid sea ice changes in the Arctic Ocean in the context of climate warming, better constraints on the role of sea ice in CO2 cycling are needed to assess the capacity of polar oceans to buffer the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Air-ice CO2 fluxes were measured continuously using automated chambers from the initial freezing of a sea ice cover until its decay during the INTERICE V experiment at the Hamburg Ship Model Basin. Cooling seawater prior to sea ice formation acted as a sink for atmospheric CO2, but as soon as the first ice crystals started to form, sea ice turned to a source of CO2, which lasted throughout the whole ice growth phase. Once ice decay was initiated by warming the atmosphere, the sea ice shifted back again to a sink of CO2. Direct measurements of outward ice-atmosphere CO2 fluxes were consistent with the depletion of dissolved inorganic carbon in the upper half of sea ice. Combining measured air-ice CO2 fluxes with the partial pressure of CO2 in sea ice, we determined strongly different gas transfer coefficients of CO2 at the air-ice interface between the growth and the decay phases (from 2.5 to 0.4 mol m−2 d−1 atm−1). A 1D sea ice carbon cycle model including gas physics and carbon biogeochemistry was used in various configurations in order to interpret the observations. All model simulations correctly predicted the sign of the air-ice flux. By contrast, the amplitude of the flux was much more variable between the different simulations. In none of the simulations was the dissolved gas pathway strong enough to explain the large fluxes during ice growth. This pathway weakness is due to an intrinsic limitation of ice-air fluxes of dissolved CO2 by the slow transport of dissolved inorganic carbon in the ice. The best means we found to explain the high air-ice carbon fluxes during ice growth is an intense yet uncertain gas bubble efflux, requiring sufficient bubble nucleation and upwards rise. We therefore call for further investigation of gas bubble nucleation and transport in sea ice.

Description: The ocean engine of NEMO is a primitive equation model adapted to regional and global ocean circulation problems. It is intended to be a flexible tool for studying the ocean and its interactions with the others components of the earth climate system over a wide range of space and time scales.

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Description: Published

Description: 4A. Oceanografia e clima

Description: © The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Tison, J.-L., Maksym, T., Fraser, A. D., Corkill, M., Kimura, N., Nosaka, Y., Nomura, D., Vancoppenolle, M., Ackley, S., Stammerjohn, S., Wauthy, S., Van der Linden, F., Carnat, G., Sapart, C., de Jong, J., Fripiat, F., & Delille, B. Physical and biological properties of early winter Antarctic sea ice in the Ross Sea. Annals of Glaciology, 61(83), (2020): 241–259, https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2020.43.

Description: This work presents the results of physical and biological investigations at 27 biogeochemical stations of early winter sea ice in the Ross Sea during the 2017 PIPERS cruise. Only two similar cruises occurred in the past, in 1995 and 1998. The year 2017 was a specific year, in that ice growth in the Central Ross Sea was considerably delayed, compared to previous years. These conditions resulted in lower ice thicknesses and Chl-a burdens, as compared to those observed during the previous cruises. It also resulted in a different structure of the sympagic algal community, unusually dominated by Phaeocystis rather than diatoms. Compared to autumn-winter sea ice in the Weddell Sea (AWECS cruise), the 2017 Ross Sea pack ice displayed similar thickness distribution, but much lower snow cover and therefore nearly no flooding conditions. It is shown that contrasted dynamics of autumnal-winter sea-ice growth between the Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea impacted the development of the sympagic community. Mean/median ice Chl-a concentrations were 3–5 times lower at PIPERS, and the community status there appeared to be more mature (decaying?), based on Phaeopigments/Chl-a ratios. These contrasts are discussed in the light of temporal and spatial differences between the two cruises.

Description: S. Stammerjohn was supported by the PIPERS and LTER Programs of the U.S. National Science Foundation, ANT-1341606 (S. Stammerjohn and J. Cassano, U Colorado) and ANT-0823101 (H. Ducklow, LDEO/Columbia University), respectively. Steve Ackley (UTSA) was supported by the PIPERS program of the U.S. National Science Foundation ANT-1341717 and by NASA Grant 80NSSC19M0194 to the Center for Adv. Meas. in Extreme Environments at UTSA.Ted Maksym (WHOI) was supported by the PIPERS program of the U.S. National Science Foundation ANT-1341513. This research was supported by the Belgian F.R.S-FNRS (project ISOGGAP and IODIne, contract T.0268.16 and J.0262.17, respectively). Fanny Van der Linden, Sarah Wauthy, Gauthier Carnat, Célia Sapart and Bruno Delille are PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and research associate, respectively, of the Belgian F.R.S.-FNRS. This work was also supported by the Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centre program through the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, and by the Australian Research Council's Special Research Initiative for Antarctic Gateway Partnership (Project ID SR140300001). Daiki Nomura was supported by grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#17H04715) and the National Institute for Polar Research through Project Research KP-303 (ROBOTICA) and #28-14.