Sea-Ice Motion and Flux within the Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea, Queen Elizabeth Islands, Canada during 2010

One of the routes for thick, multi-year sea ice (MYI) exiting the Arctic Ocean is through the Queen Elizabeth Islands (QEI) in the Canadian Arctic. Quantifying the volume of MYI that passes through the QEI and the associated transit times is important for assessing changes in Arctic-wide MYI amount. It is also important because MYI eventually invades the Northwest Passage and affects Arctic shipping. One of the main gateways through which Arctic sea ice enters the QEI is the Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea. In this study, sea-ice influx events into the Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea during the 2010 mobile-ice season were investigated. Sea-ice motion was derived from RADARSAT imagery using the Canadian Ice Service-Automated Sea Ice Tracking System (CIS-ASITS) and validated using data from two CIS satellite-tracked beacons. Ice motion results indicate that major ice influxes through the Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea occur as a series of wind-driven pulses and that ice drift rates are approximately 1-2% of the wind speed. During intervals of southward ice drift in 2010, the drift speed along the eastern side of the Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea was up to twice as fast as that along the western side. This east-west gradient may reflect a pattern of ocean circulation in the Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea that has not yet been delineated.