Articles | Volume 16, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1563-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1563-2022
Research article
 | 
04 May 2022
Research article |  | 04 May 2022

Characterizing the sea-ice floe size distribution in the Canada Basin from high-resolution optical satellite imagery

Alexis Anne Denton and Mary-Louise Timmermans

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Cited articles

Baker, J. and Zall, L.: The MEDEA Program: Opening a Window into New Earth Science Data, Oceanography, 33, 20–31, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2020.104, 2020. 
Bateson, A. W., Feltham, D. L., Schröder, D., Hosekova, L., Ridley, J. K., and Aksenov, Y.: Impact of sea ice floe size distribution on seasonal fragmentation and melt of Arctic sea ice, The Cryosphere, 14, 403–428, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-403-2020, 2020. 
Clauset, A., Shalizi, C. R., and Newman, M. E. J.: Power-Law Distributions in Empirical Data, SIAM Rev., 51, 661–703, https://doi.org/10.1137/070710111, 2009. 
Denton, A. A.: Sea-Ice Floe Segmentation, Zenodo [code], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6146144, 2022. 
Denton, A. A. and Timmermans, M. L.: Sea-Ice Floe Segmentation Products Derived from MEDEA Imagery for 1999 through 2014 in the Canada Basin, Zenodo [data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6341621, 2022. 
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Short summary
Arctic sea ice has a distribution of ice sizes that provides insight into the physics of the ice. We examine this distribution from satellite imagery from 1999 to 2014 in the Canada Basin. We find that it appears as a power law whose power becomes less negative with increasing ice concentrations and has a seasonality tied to that of ice concentration. Results suggest ice concentration be considered in models of this distribution and are important for understanding sea ice in a warming Arctic.