Blowing snow contributions to the Arctic snow-on-sea ice budget using ICESat-2 observations

Details

• Journal Title:
  The Cryosphere
• Personal Author:
  Robinson, Joseph ; Jaeglé, Lyatt ; Palm, Stephen P. ; Liston, Glen E.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  CIRA (Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere)
• Description:
  Blowing snow modulates the evolution of snow over Arctic sea ice through redistribution and sublimation. Here, we present the first multi-year pan-Arctic observational estimates of blowing snow occurrence, properties, and associated fluxes based on NASA Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2) satellite observations for five cold seasons (November through April 2018-2023). On average, ICESat-2 detects blowing snow 19 % of the time over sea ice, with localized frequencies reaching up to 35 % in the Central Arctic, where blowing snow heights (optical depths) reach 150 m (0.20). We find that blowing snow occurrence shows strong interannual variability related to large-scale climate variability, particularly the Arctic Oscillation (AO). During positive AO phases, blowing snow occurrence increases substantially, with up to a two-fold increase in the Central Arctic. Blowing snow occurrence, height, and optical depth all exhibit a strong dependence on wind speed, increasing by more than five-fold between 4 and 15 m s −1 . ICESat-2 blowing snow sublimation estimates average 1.63 cm snow-water-equivalent (SWE) per cold season, thus removing 14 % of pan-Arctic snowfall. In the Central Arctic, the offset is 18 %-24 %. These values are consistent with simulations from the high-resolution SnowModel-LG (1.66 cm SWE) and a simpler, threshold-based model (2.07 cm SWE). Interannual variability in snowfall and sublimation can be 1-2 cm SWE, though not always in phase, resulting in snowfall removals that range from 9 % to 20 %. Critically, these findings provide satellite-based constraints on blowing snow processes over sea ice and underscore the importance of blowing snow sublimation in the Arctic snow budget.
• Source:
  The Cryosphere, 20(5), 3217-3233
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-3217-2026
• ISSN:
  1994-0424
• Format:
  pdf
• Publisher:
  Copernicus GmbH
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Library
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/75870/noaa_75870_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 8.17 MB]
• Collection(s):
  NOAA Cooperative Institutes
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d08804479142636b481522e6635b4c2eb6dba183195d48e1618a245f9ae0d1f7e63c534c53be0d837ac9017a3d88c6979d8f920759973db5fb7375c311729cad