the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Reconstruction of Arctic sea ice thickness (1992–2010) based on a hybrid machine learning and data assimilation approach
Jiping Xie
Anton Korosov
Julien Brajard
Laurent Bertino
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The Arctic sea ice cover has changed dramatically over the last few decades. Thick, old ice that has survived several years is being replaced by thinner ice that forms each winter and melts easily. We examined Arctic sea ice age from 1991 to 2025 using satellite observations and found that during the rapid transition from 2003 to 2008, the area covered by multi-year ice decreased sharply, likely due to altered sea ice dynamics. Then, the Arctic has remained in a new state with much less old ice.
Sea ice forecasts are operationally produced using physically based models, but these forecasts are often not accurate enough for maritime operations. In this study, we developed a statistical correction technique using machine learning in order to improve the skill of short-term (up to 10 d) sea ice concentration forecasts produced by the TOPAZ4 model. This technique allows for the reduction of errors from the TOPAZ4 sea ice concentration forecasts by 41 % on average.