Journal article
Salinity control of thermal evolution of late summer melt ponds on Arctic sea ice
- Abstract:
- The thermal evolution of melt ponds on Arctic sea ice was investigated through a combination of autonomous observations and two‐dimensional high‐resolution fluid dynamics simulations. We observed one relatively fresh pond and one saline pond on the same ice floe, with similar depth. The comparison of observations and simulations indicates that thermal convection dominates in relatively fresh ponds, but conductive heat transfer dominates in salt‐stratified ponds. Using a parameterized surface energy balance, we estimate that the heat flux to the ice is larger under the saline pond than the freshwater pond when averaged over the observational period. The deviation is sensitive to assumed wind, varying between 3 and 14 W/m2 for winds from 0 to 5 m/s. If this effect persists as conditions evolve through the melt season, our results suggest that this imbalance potentially has a climatologically significant impact on sea‐ice evolution.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.5MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1029/2018GL078077
Authors
+ European Union Award
More from this funder
- Funding agency for:
- Wells, A
- Grant:
- PCIG13-GA-2013-618610
+ Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
More from this funder
- Funding agency for:
- Wells, A
- Rees Jones, D
- Grant:
- PCIG13-GA-2013-618610
- EP/K032208/1
+ John Fell Oxford University
More from this funder
- Funding agency for:
- Wells, A
- Rees Jones, D
- Grant:
- PCIG13-GA-2013-618610
- EP/K032208/1
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Journal:
- Geophysical Research Letters More from this journal
- Volume:
- 45
- Issue:
- 16
- Pages:
- 8304-8313
- Publication date:
- 2018-08-03
- Acceptance date:
- 2018-07-29
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1944-8007
- ISSN:
-
0094-8276
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
pubs:891714
- UUID:
-
uuid:d94bf08e-7122-463a-a21f-ce50e2b63a6c
- Local pid:
-
pubs:891714
- Source identifiers:
-
891714
- Deposit date:
-
2018-07-30
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- American Geophysical Union
- Copyright date:
- 2018
- Notes:
- © 2018 American Geophysical Union. All rights reserved. This is the publisher's version of the article which is available online from American Geophysical Union at: https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078077
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record