Recent years have seen significant reductions in Arctic sea ice extent, and a redistribution of sea ice in the Antarctic. Climate projections suggest a reduction of the sea ice cover in both poles, with the Arctic becoming seasonally ice free in the latter half of this century.

The scientific community is investing considerable effort in organising our current knowledge of the physical and biogeochemical properties of sea ice, exploring poorly understood sea ice processes, and forecasting future changes of the sea ice cover.

In this session, we invite contributions regarding all aspects of sea ice science and sea ice-climate interactions, including snow and sea ice thermodynamics and dynamics, sea ice-atmosphere and sea ice-ocean interactions, sea ice biological and chemical processes, and sea ice models. A focus on emerging processes and implications is particularly welcome.

In recent years the interaction between the ocean and the cryosphere in the marginal seas of the Southern Ocean has become a major focus in climate research. Questions such as "Why has Antarctic sea ice only recently begun to decline?", "What controls the inflow of warm water into ice shelf cavities and how does it interact with the ice?", and “What are the dominant processes in ice-ocean boundary layers?” have attracted scientific and public attention. Recent advances in observational technology, data coverage, and modeling provide scientists with a better understanding of the mechanisms involving ice-ocean interactions of various types in the far South. Processes on the Antarctic continental shelf have been identified as missing links between the cryosphere, the global atmosphere and the deep open ocean that need to be captured in large-scale and global model simulations. Similarly, our limited knowledge of processes in ice-ocean boundary layers, such as heat and salt fluxes that control the melt rate, has been identified as a limitation on our ability to fully understand, let alone parameterize melting and freezing at interfaces between the ocean and ice shelves, icebergs, glaciers, and sea ice.

This session includes studies of the Southern Ocean's marginal seas including the Antarctic continental shelf and ice shelf cavities, as well as process studies with a particular focus on ice-ocean boundary layers and on all scales, from the ice-ocean interface to local to basin-scale to circumpolar. Physical and biogeochemical interactions between ice shelves, sea ice and the open ocean will be presented, along with their impacts on the greater Antarctic climate system. Presentations include theoretical studies as well as those based on in-situ observations, remote sensing, and process-scale, regional and global models. While the primary focus of the session is on ice-ocean interactions, we also includes contributions on ice-covered freshwater lakes.

Public information:
16:15-16:50 Characteristics of Polar Seas and connection with ice shelves and the open ocean
Chairs: Leo, Louis

16:15-16:20 Raquel Flynn (D2761 | EGU2020-21107)
16:20-16:25 Katherine Hutchinson (D2768 | EGU2020-112)
16:25-16:30 Roberto Grilli (D2772 | EGU2020-2984)
16:30-16:35 Chengyan Liu (D2770 | EGU2020-2319)
16:35-16:40 Ria Oelerich (D2763 | EGU2020-463)
16:40-16:45 Ute Hausmann (D2767 | EGU2020-22464)
16:45-16:50 General Discussion

16:50-17:20 Sea ice and its interaction with ice shelves and the Southern Ocean
Chairs: Nadine, Xylar

16:50-16:55 Lucile Ricard (D2765 | EGU2020-17820)
16:55-17:00 Pierre-Vincent Huot (D2780 | EGU2020-19677)
17:00-17:05 Isabelle Giddy (D2777 | EGU2020-9934)
17:05-17:10 F. Alexander Haumann (D2782 | EGU2020-22008)
17:10-17:15 Sönke Maus (D2762 | EGU2020-6039)
17:15-17:20 General Discussion

17:20-18:00 Turbulent Ice Shelf-Ocean Boundary Layers
Chairs: Irena, Xylar

17:20-17:25 Ryan Patmore (D2769 | EGU2020-10388)
17:25-17:30 Leo Middleton (D2781 | EGU2020-9112)
17:30-17:35 Louis-Alexandre Couston (D2776 | EGU2020-19054)
17:35-17:40 Carolyn Branecky Begeman (D2774 | EGU2020-10848)
17:40-17:45 Peter Davis (D2771 | EGU2020-50)
17:45-18:00 General Discussion

The rapid decline of Arctic sea ice in the last decade is a dramatic indicator of climate change. The Arctic sea ice cover is now thinner, weaker and drifts faster. The ocean is also changing; the volume of freshwater stored in the Arctic and has increased as have the inputs of coastal runoff from Siberia and Greenland. Concurrently inflows from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have warmed. As the global surface temperature rises, the Arctic Ocean is speculated to become seasonally ice-free in the 21st century, which prompts us to revisit our perceptions of the Arctic system as a whole. What could the Arctic look like in the future? How are the present changes in the Arctic going to affect the lower latitudes? What aspects of the changing Arctic should future observations, remote sensing and modelling programmes address? The scientific community is investing considerable effort in making the current knowledge of the physical and biogeochemical properties of the Arctic more systematic, in exploring poorly understood coupled atmosphere-sea-ice-ocean processes to improve prediction of future changes in the Arctic.

In this session, we invite contributions from a variety of studies addressing the recent past, present and future Arctic. We encourage submissions examining interactions between the ocean, atmosphere and sea ice and on studies linking changes in the Arctic to the global ocean. Submissions with a focus on emerging cryospheric, oceanic and biogeochemical processes and their implications are particularly welcome.

The session promotes results from current Arctic programmes and discussions on future plans for Arctic Ocean modelling and measurement strategies, and encourage submissions on the results from the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC).

Public information:
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