Sea ice forms in those portions of the high-latitude oceans where the water temperature falls below the freezing point (approximately 271.2°K). Once it has formed, a sea ice cover generally fractures into floes with typical dimensions of 10–1,000 m. The fracturing is a response to stresses imposed by the oceans and the winds, which also cause the ice to drift at speeds of up to 10 km day−1.
In the Antarctic, the area covered by sea ice varies seasonally from 2.5 × 106 km2 to 2.0 × 106 km2. Only slightly more than 10% of the ice survives the summer melt. The average thickness is 1.5 m, and recent satellite observations indicate that typical concentrations are 60–85%. Because the ice is unconstrained by land at its equatorward boundary, it is free to interact with the open ocean. In contrast, much of the Arctic ice cover is constrained by land areas. The seasonal range is much less (7.0 × 106 km2 to 14.1 × 106 km2) than in the Antarctic, and much of the ice has survived at least one...
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© 1987 Van Nostrand Reinhold
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Walsh, J.E. (1987). Sea Ice, climatic changes . In: Climatology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30749-4_155
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30749-4_155
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