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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2024-89</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Seasonal Evolution of the Sea Ice Floe Size Distribution from Two Decades of MODIS Data</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Buckley</surname>
<given-names>Ellen Margaret</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7415-5054</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Cañuelas</surname>
<given-names>Leela</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Timmermans</surname>
<given-names>Mary-Louise</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wilhelmus</surname>
<given-names>Monica Martinez</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3980-2620</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Center for Fluid Mechanics, School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>19</day>
<month>01</month>
<year>2024</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2024</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>16</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2024 Ellen Margaret Buckley et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2024</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-89/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-89/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-89/egusphere-2024-89.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-89/egusphere-2024-89.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>The Arctic sea ice cover seasonally evolves from large plates separated by long, linear leads in the winter to a mosaic of smaller sea ice floes in the summer. The interplay between physical and thermodynamic mechanisms during this process ultimately sets the observed sea ice floe size distribution (FSD), an important metric for characterizing the sea ice cover and assessing model performance. Historically, FSDs have been studied at fixed locations over short periods, leaving a gap in our understanding of the spatial and temporal evolution of the FSD at large scales. Here, we present a new framework for image segmentation, allowing the identification and labeling of individual ice floes in Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Using this algorithm, we automatically process and segment 4,861 images, identifying more than 9.4 million floes over 23 years. The extracted characteristics of the floes&amp;ndash;including area, perimeter, and orientation&amp;ndash;evolve throughout the spring and summer in the Beaufort Sea. We find seasonal patterns of decreasing mean floe area, increasing FSD power law slope, and more variability in the floe orientation as the summer progresses.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="16"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Office of Naval Research</funding-source>
<award-id>N00014-23-1-2014</award-id>
<award-id>N00014-22-1-2722</award-id>
<award-id>N00014-22-1-2741</award-id>
<award-id>N00014-20-1-2753</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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