Snow on Sea Ice

During the last few decades, the decrease in sea ice cover has been the dominant radiative feedback in the climate system. The extent, thickness and duration of sea ice cover, and how the ice absorbs and reflects radiation, significantly impact Earth’s energy balance, directly affecting Earth’s temperatures and sea-level rise, Antarctic bottom-water formation, ice shelf stability and ocean circulation and polar ecosystems. Snow cover dominates the thermal and optical properties of sea ice and the energy fluxes between the ocean and the atmosphere. It acts as an effective energy barrier between the atmosphere and the ocean, preventing heating of the upper ocean and drives the development of the atmospheric boundary layer with consequences for weather prediction, including extreme events and their sequencing.

There is a pressing need to improve model representation of snow on sea ice, particularly in capturing snow’s highly variable spatial and temporal characteristics in Antarctica. Previous studies indicate a complex role for snow on sea ice, highlighting the strong need for Antarctic observations, which, combined with Arctic observations, can be used to better identify and understand geographically independent and climate-independent processes. Snow on Sea Ice research cluster aims to collect such unprecedented datasets from the Weddell Sea sector of Antarctica in order to inform numerical models and satellite retrievals with realistic representations of snow physics.

Research Cluster PI

Ruzica Dadic, WSL/SLF

Research Cluster Participants

Michael Lehning, EPFL, WSL/SLF
Nander Wever, WSL/SLF

Snow on Sea Ice

Research Cluster PI

Research Cluster Participants

Links with Participants of other Research Clusters

Swiss and International Partners