Ecological Indicators (Oct 2023)
Spatial-temporal variations of one-year ice in Antarctic different regions, 1988–2020
Abstract
In order to increase the comparability of Antarctic sea ice changes, we proposed a new method to quantitatively assess the spatial–temporal variation characteristics of Antarctic one-year ice based on daily Antarctic sea ice concentration data provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) from 1988 to 2020. According to the threshold value of 15% sea ice concentration, the definition of one-year ice and multiyear ice, we divided the Antarctic into 5 regions (seawater regions, stable one-year ice regions, one-year ice and seawater coexistence regions, multiyear ice regions, and one-year ice and multiyear ice coexistence regions) for 33 years and finally conducted the spatio-temporal analysis of the one-year ice in three regions (stable one-year ice regions, one-year ice and seawater coexistence regions, and one-year ice and multiyear ice coexistence regions). We examined the changes in sea ice parameters over 33 years. The results showed that from 1988 to 2020, in the stable one-year ice regions the Antarctic melt onset date had a slight delay trend with 0.2504 days year−1 and the melt end date had a slightly advance trend with 0.0524 days year−1, in the one-year ice and seawater coexistence regions the Antarctic annual average sea ice concentration had a weak decreasing trend with a rate of 0.0003/year (The maximal sea ice concentration is 0.238724 in 2010, and the minimal sea ice concentration is 0.166427 in 2019), in one-year ice and multiyear ice coexistence regions the multiyear ice increased at a rate of 0.0039 × 106 km2 and the annual melt index had a slight upward trend with 0.0022 × 108 km2 year−1.
