Sea Ice Prediction: The Development of a Suite of Sea-Ice Forecasting System forthe Northern Hemisphere

摘要

The layer of ice and snow that covers the Arctic Ocean and its marginal seas ishighly variable in nature. Satellite imagery of the ice cover (Parkinson, 1991) has shown great interannual variability in the monthly averaged sea-ice distribution over the past 15 years. Although the central Arctic has its greatest variability in the summer, many of the marginal seas, which are ice covered in winter only (e.g., Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk), exhibit the greatest variability in winter. The seasonal cycle of ice growth and decay has also been observed to vary from region to region and from year to year (Parkinson et al., 1987). On average, the ice cover in the northern hemisphere reaches its maximum extent in March and its minimum extent in September. The variability in the extent of the ice cover is due to a number of different forces acting on the ice. Heating and cooling from both the atmosphere and the ocean are responsible for the growth and decay of sea ice. In addition, the ice cover in the northern hemisphere reaches its maximum extent in March and its minimum extent in September.