Volume 46, Issue 20
Research Letter

Spatiotemporal Variability of Sea Ice in the Arctic's Last Ice Area

G. W. K. Moore

Corresponding Author

E-mail address: gwk.moore@utoronto.ca

Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Correspondence to: G. W. K. Moore,

E-mail address: gwk.moore@utoronto.ca

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A. Schweiger

Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

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J. Zhang

Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

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M. Steele

Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

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First published: 15 October 2019
Citations: 2

Abstract

The Arctic Ocean's oldest and thickest sea ice lies along the ~2,000 km arc from the western Canadian Arctic Archipelago to the northern coast of Greenland. Climate models suggest that this region will be the last to lose its perennial ice cover, thus providing an important refuge for ice‐dependent species. However, remarkably little is known about the climate or characteristics of the sea ice in this remote and inhospitable region. Here, we use the Pan‐Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System model to show that the ice cover in the region is very dynamic, with changes occurring at a rate twice that of the Arctic Ocean as a whole. However, there are some differences in the changing nature of the ice cover between the eastern and western regions of the Last Ice Area, which include different timing of the annual minimum in ice thickness as well as distinct ice motion patterns associated with ice thickness extrema.