Tricky Math Solves Old Arctic Ice Mystery

To answer a 40-year-old question about Arctic ice thickness, scientists have treated the ice floes of the frozen seas like colliding molecules in a fluid or gas.

Above, a scientist sips freshwater from an Arctic meltpond. Kathryn Hansen/NASA via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

To answer a 40-year-old question about Arctic ice thickness, scientists have treated the ice floes of the frozen seas like colliding molecules in a fluid or gas.

Although today’s highly precise satellites do a fine job of measuring the area of sea ice, measuring the volume has always been a tricky business.

The volume is reflected through the distribution of sea ice thickness—which is subject to a number of complex processes, such as growth, melting, ridging, rafting, and the formation of open water.

We transformed the intransigent term into something tractable and—poof—solved it.

— John Wettlaufer, Yale University professor