Arctic Sea Ice Study: Pressure Ridge Decline Signals Major Climate Change Impact

For over three decades, satellite data has laid bare the stark and sobering reality of Arctic transformation under the relentless grip of climate change. The once-vast expanse of summer sea ice is retreating steadily, its coverage dwindling year after year. The ice itself is wasting away, growing thinner, weaker—its floes now rushing across the frigid waters at an unsettling pace.

Yet, amid this documented decline, one critical question remained shrouded in uncertainty: What of the iconic pressure ridges, the jagged scars of the Arctic’s icy armor? Until recently, their fate eluded observation, their story hidden from even the most advanced satellites. Now, with cutting-edge technology, a clearer picture of their struggle against a warming world begins to emerge—a tale of resilience, fragility, and a rapidly changing Arctic.

A team of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), has now reprocessed and analyzed laser-based readings gathered in 30 years of research flights over the Arctic ice. The survey flights, which cover a total distance of roughly 76,000 kilometers, show for the first time that the frequency of pressure ridges north of Greenland and in Fram Strait is decreasing by 12.2%, and their height by 5%, per decade. Data from the Lincoln Sea, an area where particularly old ice is known to accumulate, paints a similar picture: here, the frequency is declining by 14.9% and the height by 10.4% per decade.

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“Until now, it’s remained unclear how pressure ridges were changing,” says Dr Thomas Krumpen, a sea-ice expert at the AWI and the study’s main author. “More and more of the Arctic consists of ice that melts in the summer and is no more than a year old. This young, thin ice can more readily be deformed and more rapidly forms new pressure ridges. So you might expect their frequency to increase. The fact that pressure ridges are nonetheless in decline is due to the dramatic melting of older floes. Ice that has survived several summers is characterized by a particularly high number of pressure ridges since it has been subjected to high pressures over a longer timeframe. The loss of this multiyear ice is so severe that we’re observing an overall decline in pressure-ridge frequency, even though the thin young ice is easier to deform.”

In order to draw conclusions regarding Arctic-wide changes, the researchers combined all observational data to develop a metric. Then, with the aid of satellite data, they applied it to the Arctic as a whole: “We tend to see the greatest decline in pressure ridges in those places where the ice’s age has decreased most,” summarises Prof Christian Haas, Head of Sea-ice Physics at the AWI. “Major changes can be seen in the Beaufort Sea, but also in the Central Arctic. Both regions are now partly ice-free in summer, though they were once dominated by ice that was at least five years old.”

For the groundbreaking study, individual pressure ridges and their towering heights were meticulously measured and analyzed during daring survey flights. Achieving this level of precision was made possible by flying at altitudes of less than 100 meters above the ice and utilizing advanced laser sensors with an exceptionally high scanning rate, enabling the creation of detailed terrain models.

The Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) began its scientific flights over the Arctic sea ice in the early 1990s, launching from Svalbard with two Dornier DO228 aircraft, Polar 2 and Polar 4. These pioneers have since passed the torch to their successors, the Basler BT-67s, Polar 5 and Polar 6. Specially outfitted to endure the punishing extremes of the polar regions, these aircraft can be equipped with an array of cutting-edge sensors.

Twice a year, these airborne sentinels sweep across the ice north of Greenland, Svalbard, and Canada, unveiling the secrets of the ever-changing Arctic landscape. Complementing their efforts, the icebreaker Polarstern joins the mission with its onboard helicopters, ensuring no corner of the polar frontier goes unexamined. Together, these tools of exploration form the vanguard of Arctic research, piecing together the story of a region in flux.