Mechanisms associated with the rapid decline in sea ice cover around a stranded ship in the Lazarev Sea, Antarctica.

Autor: Jena B; National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Vasco-da-Gama, India. Electronic address: bjena@ncpor.res.in., Bajish CC; National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Vasco-da-Gama, India., Turner J; British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge, UK., Ravichandran M; National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Vasco-da-Gama, India., Kshitija S; National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Vasco-da-Gama, India., Anilkumar N; National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Vasco-da-Gama, India., Singh AK; National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Vasco-da-Gama, India., Pradhan PK; Department of Physics, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, India., Ray Y; National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Vasco-da-Gama, India., Saini S; National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Vasco-da-Gama, India.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2022 May 15; Vol. 821, pp. 153379. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jan 24.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153379
Abstrakt: In the satellite data era starting from 1979, the extent of Antarctic sea ice increased moderately for the first 37 years. However, the extent decreased to record low levels from 2016 to 2020, with the drop being greatest in the Weddell and Lazarev Seas of the Southern Ocean. An important question for the scientific fraternity and policymakers is to understand what ocean-atmospheric processes triggered such a rapid decline in sea ice. We employ in-situ, satellite, and atmospheric reanalysis data to examine the causative mechanism of anomalous sea ice variability in the Lazarev Sea at a time of ice growth in the annual cycle (March-April 2019), when a cargo ship was stuck in extensive ice cover and freed following the unusual decline in sea ice. High-resolution Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar captured a distinct view of the ship location and track within extensive ice cover of fast sea ice, dense pack ice, and icebergs in the Lazarev Sea on 27 March 2019. Subsequently, the sea ice cover declined and reached the fourth lowest extent in the entire satellite record during April 2019 which was 25.6% lower than the long-term mean value of 2.65 × 10 6 km 2 . We show that the anomalous sea ice variability was due to the occurrence of eastward-moving polar cyclones, including a quasi-stationary explosive development that impacted sea ice through extreme changes in ocean-atmospheric conditions. The cyclone-induced dynamic (poleward propagation of ocean waves and ice motion) and thermodynamic (heat and moisture plumes from midlatitudes, ocean mixed layer warming) processes coupled with high tides provided a conducive environment for an exceptional decline in sea ice over the region of ship movement.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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