Quantifying the interplay of sea ice meltwater and ice–albedo feedbacks in the Arctic ice-ocean system

Zhang, Haohao; Storto, Andrea; Bai, Xuezhi; Yang, Chunxue

doi:10.5194/tc-19-6807-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6807-2025

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6807-2025

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

Articles | Volume 19, issue 12

Research article

|

17 Dec 2025

Research article |

| 17 Dec 2025

Quantifying the interplay of sea ice meltwater and ice–albedo feedbacks in the Arctic ice-ocean system

Haohao Zhang, Andrea Storto, Xuezhi Bai, and Chunxue Yang

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6807-2025-supplement

Data sets

NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record of Passive Microwave Sea Ice Concentration, Version 5 W. N. Meier et al. https://doi.org/10.7265/rjzb-pf78

World Ocean Atlas 2023, Volume 1: Temperature R. A. Locarnini et al. https://doi.org/10.25923/54bh-1613

Model code and software

Quantifying the interplay of sea ice meltwater and ice–albedo feedbacks in the Arctic ice-ocean system H. Zhang et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17890245

Short summary

Using a 1D coupled ice-ocean model, we quantified the effects of meltwater and ice-albedo feedback independently. The meltwater reduces melting by 19 % through thermal isolation, while ice-albedo feedback increases melting by 41 %, with nonlinear coupling between them. In winter, meltwater protects ice in weakly stratified areas by blocking Atlantic heat. Our study provides new insights into the relative importance of different components in the Arctic ice-ocean system.