Reflection and transmission of irradiance by snow and sea ice in the central Arctic Ocean in summer 2010

Polar research

Zhanhai Zhang¹  Bin Cheng²  Qun Li³  Wenfeng Huang⁴  Ilkka Matero⁴  Ruibo Lei⁵ 

[1] State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University 1239 Siping Road200092 Shanghai China Correspondence;Department of Physics, University of Helsinki PO Box 48FI-00014 Helsinki Finland;Marine Department, Finnish Meteorological Institute PO Box 503FI-00101 Helsinki Finland;Polar Oceanography Division, Polar Research Institute of China 451 Jinqiao RoadPudong, 200136 Shanghai China;Polar Oceanography Division, Polar Research Institute of China 451 Jinqiao RoadPudong, 200136 Shanghai China;State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology 2 Linggong Road116024 Dalian China

关键词: Sea ice;    snow;    solar irradiance;    reflection;    transmission;    Arctic;   

DOI  :  10.3402/polar.v31i0.17325

学科分类：自然科学（综合）

来源: Co-Action Publishing

【 摘 要 】

Reflection and transmission of irradiance by the combined snow and sea ice layer were measured at an ice camp (ca. 10 days) and several short-term stations (ca. 2 h) established in the western sector of the Arctic Ocean above 80°N during the 2010 summer. These measurements were made with an intention to quantify the apparent optical properties of snow and sea ice, and to evaluate their roles in the mass balance of snow-covered sea ice in the High Arctic. The integrated 350–920 nm albedo ranged from 0.54 to 0.88, and was primarily dependent on the geophysical properties of snow, but not those of sea ice. This implies that all snow cover was still optically thick, even though snow melting had commenced at all measurement sites. For sea ice about 1.66 m thick and covered by 2.5–8.5 cm of snow at the ice camp, the integrated 350–920 nm transmittance ranged from 0.017 to 0.065. Rapid snow melting resulting from an event of slight drizzle doubled the available solar irradiance under the ice (from ca. 3.6 to 7.2...

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC