Summer Arctic ice covered in snow, baffling scientists

The rare weather pattern was noted by Marcel Nicolaus, a sea ice physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, who studies the region.

He was part of a research team led by AWI Director Antje Boetius who spent two months in the North Pole on Polarstern, an icebreaker, to measure the properties of the sea ice.

Their vessel is expected to return to Bremerhaven, Germany, on Saturday.

"The Arctic sea ice is actually characterised by the fact that there is no snow on it in summer and it is covered with ponds," Nicolaus said in a press conference broadcast online.

The current levels of snow may be due to the unusually stable low-pressure area during the summer, which provided cooler air in the Arctic.

"The summer of 2023 marks the globally hottest summer since weather records began, glaciers are melting faster than ever, huge forest fires in Canada and Siberia are leaving their mark, sea ice was already melting faster than before in May and June 2023," the team noted.

"Therefore, the expedition team expected particularly little sea ice during the investigations in the central Arctic.

They said the first results were surprising.

"The sea ice of the central Arctic Ocean did not melt as much as expected in August and September, and it was also thicker than in previous years," they said in a statement published online.

They measured ice around 1.2 metres thick, which is more than in the particularly bad years of 2020 and 2012.

"That was extraordinary," Nicolaus said.

He said the snow had saved the ice, protecting it from surface melt.

In a further pattern, the team also said they had seen hardly any ice algae that usually forms on the underside of the sea ice.

"The ice looked rather dead this year," Boetius said.

Usually, lengthy chains of ice algae form under the sea ice, "an important nutrient supplier for the entire ecosystem," she added.

Australian Associated Press