Characterizing sea ice melt pond fraction and geometry in relation to surface morphology

Buth, Lena G.; Krumpen, Thomas; Neckel, Niklas; Webster, Melinda A.; Birnbaum, Gerit; Fuchs, Niels; Heuser, Philipp; Johannsen, Ole; Haas, Christian

doi:10.5194/tc-19-6527-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6527-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6527-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 12

Research article

|

04 Dec 2025

Research article |

| 04 Dec 2025

Characterizing sea ice melt pond fraction and geometry in relation to surface morphology

Lena G. Buth, Thomas Krumpen, Niklas Neckel, Melinda A. Webster, Gerit Birnbaum, Niels Fuchs, Philipp Heuser, Ole Johannsen, and Christian Haas

Data sets

Processed aerial images and surface classifications of Arctic sea ice during the TIFAX 2016 and ASIMBO 2018 campaigns north of Greenland Lena G. Buth et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17222941

Laser altimeter data obtained over sea-ice during the TIFAX campaign in Jul-Aug, 2016 T. Krumpen et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.971077

Laser altimeter data obtained over sea-ice during the IceBird Summer campaign in Jul-Aug, 2018 T. Krumpen et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.970640

Model code and software

PASTA-ice Github Repository N. Fuchs https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7548469

Smoother sea ice with fewer pressure ridges in a more dynamic Arctic (https://gitlab.awi.de/sitem/sbla_processing) T. Krumpen et al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02199-5

Cable Removal with Inpainting for https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1103 (0.1) P. Heuser and O. Johannsen https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17790272

Short summary

Arctic sea ice is becoming smoother, raising the question of how these changes affect melt pond coverage and thereby surface albedo. Using airborne imagery and laser altimeter data, we investigated how pressure ridges influence melt ponds. The presence of ridges does not directly control pond fraction, but it does influence pond size distribution and pond geometry. Small ponds have a more complex shape on rough ice than on smooth ice, while the opposite is true for large ponds.