An investigation of anomalously low Arctic sea ice extent using assimilated sea ice motion

1990 and 1998 were two years of anomalously low sea ice icetent in the East Siberian and Beaufort Seas (respectively) of the Arctic Ocean. Previous modeling studies have linked these sea ice anomalies with atmospheric conditions, and have shown particular sensitivity to the location and strength of synoptic-scale weather systems. Nevertheless, their success in accurately reproducing these ice anomalies has been limited. These limitations are inherent with numerical parameterizations of dynamic processes within sea ice models, which are based on a limited set of observations. Satellite remote sensing has dramatically increased the spatial and temporal coverage of ice motions in the polar regions, but these data were not available when the ice dynamics models were developed. Here, satellite-derived sea ice motion fields are used as an additional constraint on calculated sea ice motion in order to reduce errors associated with the sea ice dynamics parameterization. It is seen that the model is very sensitive to ice drift.