The further sea-ice retreat will chiefly depend on the ocean temperatures and on wind patterns, which can either condense or disperse the sea ice. As the summer draws to a close, the surface of the ce
95Focus ice DriftStory 10
How alike the two pictures are: as AWI sea-ice physicist Dr Thomas Krumpen flies over
the scattered remains of what was once the MOSAiC floe and many of its neighbouring
f
65Focus snow DriftStory 07
DriftStory 07
On 30 June 2020, meltwater ponds nearly as long as the
research vessel Polarstern covered the MOSAiC ice floe – though
the snow began melting weeks
4342 Focus iceDriftStories 01 DriftStory 04
DriftStory 04
Glittering clouds
below the ice
Generally speaking, it’s very easy to explain how Arctic sea ice becomes thicker. You
take an ocean, a
The seasonal Arctic sea-ice retreat was quite rapid in the first week of July but slowed during the rest of the month (see Fig.1). The mean extent for July 2021 was 7.72 million km 2 . As such, it was
After a two-year break, this year experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) were able to return to Station Nord in northeast Greenland, to resume
In September, the summer sea-ice melting ends in the Arctic. In other words, on a certain day of the month, the sea-ice cover reaches its lowest extent for the year and then begins growing again, beca
Sea ice is one of the most important components in the Arctic climate system. It is in a state of constant interchange with the atmosphere and the ocean, and its physical characteristics, especially i
An analysis of the first yearly datasets yielded surprising insights into the role of sea ice for life in polar waters. Depending on where and how quickly the sea ice melts, the species makeup and the
Background Satellite altimeters measure how much the sea-ice surface floats above the water level. This parameter is called freeboard and it is further converted into sea-ice thickness. This calculati
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