Insulating Effect of a Snow Cover on the Growth of Young Sea Ice

Abstract

"The vertical temperature profile through a section of the air-snow-ice system was measured daily off Point Barrow (Alaska) during the late winter and early spring of 1950. Nine thermistors were spaced from 2 m above the snow to a depth of 85 cm in the ice. Four control areas with varying thicknesses of snow cover were used to measure simultaneously the different amounts of ice growth. Snow temperatures at 7 cm varied only 9 C (-7 to -16 C) while the air temperatures varied from -10 to -32 C. The ice growth in the absence of a snow cover was nearly 50 percent greater than under 2 m of snow. Present knowledge is not sufficient to predict ice thickness from snow-cover thickness, but results of earlier studies suggest that a hyperbolic relationship exists."--SIPRE.