Concurrent Bering Sea and Labrador Sea ice melt extremes in March 2023: a confluence of meteorological events aligned with stratosphere–troposphere interactions

Abstract

Today's Arctic is characterized by a lengthening of the sea ice melt season, as well as by fast and at times unseasonal melt events. Such anomalous melt cases have been identified in Pacific and Atlantic Arctic sector sea ice studies. Through observational analyses, we document an unprecedented, concurrent marginal ice zone melt event in the Bering Sea and Labrador Sea in March of 2023. Taken independently, variability in the cold-season ice edge at synoptic timescales is common. However, such anomalous, short-term ice loss over either region during the climatological sea ice maxima is uncommon, and the tandem ice loss that occurred qualifies this as a rare event. The atmospheric setting that supported the unseasonal melt events was preceded by a sudden stratospheric warming event amidst background La Niña conditions that led to positive tropospheric height anomalies across much of the Arctic and the development of anomalous mid-troposphere ridges over the ice loss regions. These large-scale anticyclonic centers funneled extremely warm and moist airstreams onto the ice causing melt. Further analysis identified the presence of atmospheric rivers within these warm airstreams whose characteristics likely contributed to this bi-regional ice melt event. Whether such a confluence of anomalous wintertime events associated with troposphere–stratosphere coupling may occur more often in a warming Arctic remains a research area ripe for further exploration.