Extent, duration and timing of the sea ice cover in Hornsund, Svalbard, from 2014–2023

Abstract

The Sentinel-1A/B synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery archive between 14 October 2014 and 29 June 2023 was used in combination with a segmentation algorithm to create a series of binary ice/open-water maps of Hornsund fjord, Svalbard, at 50 m resolution for nine seasons (2014/15 to 2022/23). The near-daily (1.57 d mean temporal resolution) maps were used to calculate sea ice coverage for the entire fjord and its parts, namely the main basin and three major bays: Burgerbukta, Brepollen and Samarinvågen. The average length of the sea ice season was 158 d (range: 105–246 d). Drift ice first arrived from the southwest between October and March, and the fast-ice onset was on average 24 d later. The fast ice typically disappeared in June, around 20 d after the last day with drift ice. The average sea ice coverage over the sea ice season was 41 % (range: 23 %–56 %), but it was lower in the main basin (27 %) compared to in the bays (63 %). Of the bays, Samarinvågen had the highest sea ice coverage (69 %), likely due to its narrow opening and its location in southern Hornsund protecting it from the incoming wind-generated waves. Seasonally, the highest sea ice coverage was observed in April for the entire fjord and the bays and in March for the main basin. The 2014/15, 2019/20 and 2021/22 seasons were characterised by the highest sea ice coverage, and these were also the seasons with the largest number of negative air temperature days in October–December. The 2019/20 season was characterised by the lowest mean daily and monthly air temperatures. We observed a remarkable interannual variability in the sea ice coverage, but on a nine-season scale we did not record any gradual trend of decreasing sea ice coverage. These high-resolution data can be used to, e.g. better understand the spatiotemporal trends in the sea ice distribution in Hornsund, facilitate comparison between Svalbard fjords, and improve modelling of nearshore wind wave transformation and coastal erosion.