Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-187
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-187
14 Feb 2023
 | 14 Feb 2023
Status: this preprint is open for discussion.

New estimates of the pan-Arctic sea ice–atmosphere neutral drag coefficients from ICESat-2 elevation data

Alexander Mchedlishvili, Christof Lüpkes, Alek Petty, Michel Tsamados, and Gunnar Spreen

Abstract. The effect that sea ice topography has on the momentum transfer between ice and atmosphere is not fully quantified due to the vast extent of the Arctic and limitations of current measurement techniques. Here we present a method to estimate pan-Arctic momentum transfer via a parameterization which links sea ice–atmosphere form drag coefficients with surface feature height and spacing. We measure these sea ice surface feature parameters using the Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) which, though it cannot resolve as well airborne surveys, has a higher along-track spatial resolution than other contemporary altimeter satellites. As some narrow obstacles are effectively smoothed out by the ICESat-2 ATL07 spatial resolution, we use near-coincident high-resolution Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) elevation data from NASA's Operation IceBridge (OIB) mission to scale up the regional ICESat-2 drag estimates. By also incorporating drag due to open water, floe edges and sea ice skin drag, we produced a time series of average total pan-Arctic neutral atmospheric drag coefficient estimates from October 2018 to May 2022. Here we have observed its temporal evolution to be unique and not directly tied to sea ice extent. By also mapping 3-month aggregates for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 for better regional analysis, we found the thick multiyear ice area directly north of the Canadian Archipelago and Greenland to be consistently above 2.0 · 10−3 with rough ice ∼ 1.5 · 10−3 typically filling the full multiyear ice portion of the Arctic each spring.

Alexander Mchedlishvili et al.

Status: open (until 11 Apr 2023)

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  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2023-187', Anonymous Referee #1, 16 Mar 2023 reply
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Alexander Mchedlishvili et al.

Alexander Mchedlishvili et al.

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Short summary
In this study we looked at sea ice–atmosphere drag coefficients, quantities that help with characterizing the friction between the atmosphere and sea ice, and vice versa. Using ICESat-2, a laser altimeter which measures elevation differences by timing how long it takes for photons it sends out to return to itself, we could map the roughness, i.e. how uneven the surface is. From roughness we then estimate drag force, the frictional force between sea ice and atmosphere, across the Arctic.