Abstract
The presence of the Arctic sea ice cover has a profound influence on the polar climate in the Northern Hemisphere (e.g., see Walsh, 1983; Parkinson et al., 1987). First, the ice cover reflects a large fraction of the incident solar radiation because the ice has a larger albedo than that of open water. Secondly, the ice cover acts as an insulating barrier over the relatively warm ocean and thus reduces ocean-to-atmosphere heat exchanges, especially during winter when the Arctic air is very cold. Without an ice cover, the Arctic surface air temperature would be about 10–15 degrees C warmer than today’s annual average temperature in this region. Such a warm Arctic region is believed to have last occurred during the mid-Cretaceous, 100 Myr ago. Thirdly, the ice cover strongly affects the momentum and mass transfers from the atmosphere to the ocean.
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Mysak, L.A. (2001). Arctic Sea Ice and Its Role in Climate Variability and Change. In: Straughan, B., Greve, R., Ehrentraut, H., Wang, Y. (eds) Continuum Mechanics and Applications in Geophysics and the Environment. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04439-1_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04439-1_17
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