Topic 2a: Sea Ice
Sea ice is simply frozen ocean water - it forms, grows and melts in the ocean. Whereas icebergs, glaciers, ice sheets and ice shelves originate from freshwater on land.
In this video, Robbie Mallett and Michel Tsamados give us an introduction to sea ice.
Sea ice occurs in the Arctic and Antarctic on average covers an area of 25 million square kilometres across the globe. That’s equivalent to one and a half times the area of Russia!
Although sea ice only occurs in the polar regions, it influences global climate. It covers the sea, reflecting the sun’s light and helping to keep the Earth cool. This reflective quality of sea ice is called albedo (from the Latin meaning whiteness). The less sea ice, the more heat will get absorbed into the dark ocean, leading to further warming of the Earth.
Sea ice also affects ocean currents. It is important to monitor sea ice as changes in its volume impact the freshwater budgets of the Arctic, which has wider implications for the global climate.
Additionally, monitoring sea ice is important for maritime navigation. Icebreakers like the two that were used in the MOSAiC expedition are often needed to create routes for ships through sea ice. Although a decline in sea ice will increase the level of global warming, it will also open up new shipping routes through areas that were previously frozen.
Featured Educators:
- Robbie Mallett
- Dr Michel Tsamados
Albedo
Sea Ice
Course topics
The core videos of this course are labelled as topic videos.
We have also provided a range of optional further reading, links, and additional resources to help consolidate your learning. Here is a summary of what is available:
Topic links and resources
In each topic, once you have watched the video and read the accompanying text, you will find the following information:
- Optional Further Reading: These are external links to further reading.
- Featured Images and Animations: Below the text on each video page, you’ll find the featured images and featured animations.
- Interactives: On the 'Interactives' tab on relevent topic pages, you will find a satellite tracking application showing the current location of the satellites, a data viewer from the ESA WEkEO platform, as well as a data viewer, specially created for this course, allowing you to explore a selection of data relevant to the themes and topics in this course. (Please note that due to maintenance, the data viewer is currently unavailable).
Quizzes and comments
- Quizzes: At the end of each week there will be a quizz consisting of around five questions. These will help you consolidate your understanding of new topics, but are not scored. The feedback given with each answer also will also provide you with important information.
Weekly interactive exercises
At the end of each week, we have included a guided exercise, using interactive apps available on other websites, to help you become more familiar with looking at and working with EO datasets. You will be guided through the process of searching for, comparing and drawing conclusions from data relevant to some of the topics covered in that week.
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Sea Ice Overview from NASA by Michon Scott and Kathryn Hansen
A summary of the MOSAiC mission
