University of Alaska Fairbanks
The Beaufort Sea ice cover exhibits a distinct zonation. Landfast ice lines the entire coastline during the ice season. Grounded ridges along the outer edge stabilize the landfast ice and separate it from recurring leads in the flaw zone. In recent years, Beaufort Sea ice has substantial thinned, with a northward retreat of the summer minimum ice edge. The ice regime of the coast and inner shelf has changed in a more complex fashion, with later freeze-up and higher winter temperatures. Maximum landfast ice extent has not changed significantly, but winter break-out events are increasingly common.
The presentation will conclude with a discussion of implications for oil-spill scenarios. Remote-sensing data reveals substantial local variations in key variables, such as onset of stable ice or break-up, with Prudhoe Bay exhibiting a particularly long, stable landfast ice season. There is some evidence that the deformation regime of the flaw zone and ice-seafloor interaction have changed over the past few decades. At the same time, multiyear ice occurrence in inshore waters has decreased significantly, although incursions of multiyear ice from the Northeast during the winter are still quite common.
Hajo Eicken is Professor of Geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). Before joining UAF, he was a senior scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute where he led the research group for sea ice physics and remote sensing. Dr. Eicken's research interests include studies of the growth, evolution, and properties of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. He is particularly interested in determining how microscopic and macroscopic properties affect larger-scale sea-ice processes and its role in the climate system. Dr. Eicken is serving on a number of scientific and technical committees. Currently he is heading an effort at UAF to enhance use of scientific data by a range of different stakeholders at the local and international level during the course of the International Polar Year.