Chukchi Sea
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Chukchi Sea |
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The Chukchi site in spring. The sea ice is covered with snow. The average snow depth in early April was 20 cm, ranging 2 cm to 45 cm. Beneath the snow was 1.5-m-thick sea ice. The temperature on this day was -20 C. |
Sea ice in early summer. The snow has melted and now there are puddles of water on the surface. These puddles are called melt ponds; melt ponds form when water from melting snow and ice collects on the ice surface. As you can see from the photograph, the melt ponds are darker than the surrounding ice (they have lower albedos). This means they absorb more sunlight. Absorbing more sunlight means even more melting. |
| Take a look at this site using our web cam | |
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| Community | Data input | Data plot | Science |
