Sea Ice Proxies
Wednesday, 17 August 2011 13:16
Sea Ice Proxies (SIP) became a PAGES Working Group in mid-2011. Sea ice is a crucial component of the polar climate system, impacting albedo, heat and gas exchange, primary productivity and carbon export, atmospheric and ocean circulation, freshwater budget, ocean stratification and deep water mass formation. It is therefore critical that it should be correctly specified as a forcing or predicted as a feedback in model studies. However, full and reliable knowledge (through satellite observation) of even the areal extent and seasonal variability of sea ice extends only to 1978. Some earlier observational data are available, but their coverage is patchy and their reliability uncertain. Proxy data are therefore vital for extending the sea ice record to the geological past, to improve understanding of the interplay between sea ice and the climate system over a broad range of conditions.
The overall objective of this Working Group is to critically assess and compare the different proxies for sea ice, in order to make recommendations about the reliability and applicability of each in the Arctic and the Antarctic setting. An extended objective will be to facilitate the production of new synthesis estimates of past sea ice extent based on the assessed proxies.
