Articles | Volume 13, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2869-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2869-2019
Research article
 | 
08 Nov 2019
Research article |  | 08 Nov 2019

Estimating the sea ice floe size distribution using satellite altimetry: theory, climatology, and model comparison

Christopher Horvat, Lettie A. Roach, Rachel Tilling, Cecilia M. Bitz, Baylor Fox-Kemper, Colin Guider, Kaitlin Hill, Andy Ridout, and Andrew Shepherd

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Cited articles

Alberello, A., Onorato, M., Bennetts, L., Vichi, M., Eayrs, C., MacHutchon, K., and Toffoli, A.: Brief communication: Pancake ice floe size distribution during the winter expansion of the Antarctic marginal ice zone, The Cryosphere, 13, 41–48, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-41-2019, 2019. a
Allard, R. A., Farrell, S. L., Hebert, D. A., Johnston, W. F., Li, L., Kurtz, N. T., Phelps, M. W., Posey, P. G., Tilling, R., Ridout, A., and Wallcraft, A. J.: Utilizing CryoSat-2 sea ice thickness to initialize a coupled ice-ocean modeling system, J. Geophys. Res.-Oceans, 62, 1265–1280, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2017.12.030, 2018. a
Armitage, T. W. K. and Davidson, M. W. J.: Using the Interferometric Capabilities of the ESA CryoSat-2 Mission to Improve the Accuracy of Sea Ice Freeboard Retrievals, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 52, 529–536, https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2013.2242082, 2014. a
Armitage, T. W. K., Bacon, S., and Kwok, R.: Arctic Sea Level and Surface Circulation Response to the Arctic Oscillation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 45, 6576–6584, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078386, 2018. a
Batchelor, G. K.: The theory of homogeneous turbulence, Cambridge University Press, 1953. a
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Short summary
Changes in the floe size distribution (FSD) are important for sea ice evolution but to date largely unobserved and unknown. Climate models, forecast centres, ship captains, and logistic specialists cannot currently obtain statistical information about sea ice floe size on demand. We develop a new method to observe the FSD at global scales and high temporal and spatial resolution. With refinement, this method can provide crucial information for polar ship routing and real-time forecasting.