Thermodynamical and Dynamical Impacts of an Intense Cyclone on Arctic Sea Ice

This study investigates the thermodynamical and dynamical influences of the intense cyclone in the Arctic Ocean in August 2012 on the synoptic-scale sea ice evolution, using the Arctic Ice Ocean Prediction System (ArcIOPS). As it is hard to fully isolate sea ice loss owing to extreme cyclone from that owing to background atmospheric state in most previous studies on this topic, this study introduces a newly developed algorithm to remove the cyclone component in atmospheric forcing, and conducts sea ice and heat budget analyses in two simulations driven by atmospheric forcing with and without the cyclone. Strong impact of the intense cyclone on sea ice locates on the east side of the cyclone's path, that is, Pacific Arctic for this case. The cyclone affects sea ice in two ways. First, cyclone-induced enhancement in ice-ocean interaction leads to increased sea ice basal melt in the Pacific Arctic and part of the Atlantic Arctic, which induces strong sea ice area and volume loss when the cyclone's intensity peaks. Second, as the cyclone strengthens, the increases in air temperature, humidity and wind speed accelerate turbulent heat exchange at the air-ocean and air-ice interfaces, leading to enhanced local sea ice surface melt in the Chukchi Sea and northern Beaufort Sea. The cyclone-induced strong winds stir sea ice leading to enhanced gradients in sea ice velocity field and thus increased sea ice deformation, which further induces strong sea ice area loss. This study also demonstrates a precise atmospheric forcing field is essential for sea ice modeling. Plain Language Summary We use a numerical model to study the effects of a strong Arctic cyclone on sea ice. First, we use a newly developed cyclone removal algorithm to remove the cyclone from the atmospheric data that is used to force the model. We can then compare how the sea ice changes between the model runs with and without the cyclone. We find that the cyclone has a strong local impact on sea ice, and sea ice losses are different on the two sides of the cyclone's path. The cyclone results in warm, moist air and strong wind, which leads to strong sea ice surface melting. At the same time, the cyclone increases the transfer of heat from the ocean to the sea ice, causing strong sea ice bottom melting. The strong wind also leads to more sea ice ridging and a reduction in sea ice area. Our study indicates that the effects of cyclones on sea ice are complex and that atmospheric data must accurately represent cyclones if we want to correctly model changes in the Arctic sea ice.

Automated summary

This study investigates the thermodynamical and dynamical influences of an intense cyclone in the Arctic Ocean in 2012 on sea ice. The study introduces a new algorithm to remove the cyclone component in atmospheric forcing and conducts two simulations to analyze the sea ice and heat budget with and without the cyclone. The intense cyclone has a strong impact on sea ice, leading to increased sea ice basal melt and surface melt, as well as enhanced sea ice deformation and area loss. Accurate atmospheric data is crucial for sea ice modeling.