Melt ponds

In the summer, the surface of sea ice is covered by a mosaic of melt ponds. These have very different radiative properties compared to bare ice or snow-covered ice. In particular, melt ponds reflect much less light back into space and allow more light to be transmitted into the ocean. Thus melt ponds are important for the Arctic energy budget and potentially important for primary production in the Arctic ocean.

Previous studies I have been involved with have considered:

• Whether changes to sea-ice thickness and melt ponds could have been responsible for the first observation of a massive sub-ice phytoplankton bloom (Horvat, Rees Jones, et. al., 2017). We extended this research to look at the geometric (fractal) controls on the sub-ice light field (Horvat, Flocco, Rees Jones, et. al., 2020). This collaboration arose from a Mathematical Research Community and involves researchers from Harvard/Brown, Reading, Washington and Utah.
• Salinity controls on thermal convection within melt ponds and the effect on heat flux to the ice (Kim et al., 2018).