Improving Our Understanding of Antarctic Sea Ice with NASA's Operation IceBridge and the Upcoming ICESat-2 Mission

Antarctic sea ice is a crucial component of the global climate system. Rapid sea ice production regimes around Antarctica feed the lower branch of the Southern Ocean overturning circulation through intense brine rejection and the formation of Antarctic Bottom Water (e.g., Orsi et al. 1999; Jacobs 2004), while the northward transport and subsequent melt of Antarctic sea ice drives the upper branch of the overturning circulation through freshwater input (Abernathy et al. 2016). Wind-driven trends in Antarctic sea ice (Holland Kwok 2012) have likely increased the transport of freshwater away from the Antarctic coastline, significantly altering the salinity distribution of the Southern Ocean (Haumann et al. 2016). Conversely, weaker sea ice production and the lack of shelf water formation over the Amundsen and Bellingshausen shelf seas promote intrusion of warm Circumpolar Deep Water onto the continental shelf and the ocean-driven melting of several ice shelves fringing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (e.g., Jacobs et al. 2011; Pritchard et al. 2012; Dutrieux et al. 2014). Sea ice conditions around Antarctica are also increasingly considered an important factor impacting local atmospheric conditions and the surface melting of Antarctic ice shelves (e.g., Scambos et al. 2017). Sea ice formation around Antarctica is responsive to the strong regional variability in atmospheric forcing present around Antarctica, driving this bimodal variability in the behavior and properties of the underlying shelf seas (e.g., Petty et al. 2012; Petty et al. 2014).