National Snow and Ice Data Center

NEWS & ANALYSES  DATA  OUR RESEARCH LEARN  ABOUT  !

a part of CIRES at the University of Colorado Boulder

Home > Learn > Parts of the Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Why Sea Ice Matters

Sea Ice

OVERVIEW SCIENCE WHY IT MATTERS QUICK FACTS

Why it Matters Sea ice and wildlife

In the Arctic, sea ice is a way of life—from the animals that depend on it for breeding, shelter, and Sea ice and people
food, to the people who rely on hunting for their livelihoods. How the ice forms in the fall, how thick
it is, the location of openings in sea ice, and how it retreats in the spring determine where the
Sea ice and the
animals are and whether it is safe for hunting.
environment
Communities living near sea ice depend on it for their cultural identity and subsistence practices,
but its impacts stretch far beyond. Even though sea ice occurs primarily in the polar regions, it Impacts of climate
inZuences our global climate. Arctic sea ice acts like the planet’s air conditioner. Its bright, white change on sea ice
surface reZects sunlight back into space. In other words, sea ice does not absorb much solar
energy, keeping temperatures relatively cool in the Arctic. However, as more sea ice retreats
throughout the year, the darker open oceans absorb more solar energy, raising temperatures and
setting off a cycle of warming and further melting. Even a small increase in temperature can lead to
greater warming over time, making the polar regions the most sensitive areas to climate change on
Earth. The Arctic, for instance, is warming at two to three times the rate of the rest of the planet. At
the other pole, the Antarctic Peninsula is not far behind in terms of rate of warming.

Sea ice helps regulate

exchanges of heat, moisture,
and salinity in the polar oceans.
It insulates the relatively warm
ocean water from the cold polar
atmosphere except where
cracks, or leads, in the ice allow
exchange of heat and water
vapor from ocean to
atmosphere in winter. The
number of leads determines
where and how much heat and
water are lost to the
atmosphere, which may affect
local cloud cover and
precipitation. As sea ice extent
shrinks and breaks up, exposed
ocean waters increase. With
more moisture forming in the
atmosphere, and with higher air
temperatures, the question The top globe shows the 1979 September sea ice extent, while the bottom
globe shows the 2012 September sea ice extent. Sea ice has a much
arises: will more rain-on-snow
higher albedo—the ability of a surface to reflect solar energy—compared
events occur in the Arctic? On to other Earth surfaces, such as the surrounding ocean. Changes in
land, rain on snow can have albedo are depicted with a red color bar. The darker the red the less solar
catastrophic consequences on energy is reflected back into space and the more the planet absorbs.
livestock unable to penetrate — Credit:
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio and Scripps Institution of
newly-formed thick ice to
Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
access food. In turn, Indigenous
Peoples like the Sami or Evenki,
suffer when their means of
livelihood dies.

Sea ice can inZuence ocean currents. When sea ice forms, most of the salt is pushed into the
ocean water below the ice. Some salt, however, may linger in small pockets between ice crystals.
Water below newly-formed sea ice has a higher concentration of salt, making it more dense than
surrounding ocean water. This salty, dense water sinks, Zowing along the ocean bottom toward the
equator. Meanwhile, warm water from mid-depth to the surface travels from the equator toward the
poles. In this way, sea ice contributes to the ocean's global conveyor-belt circulation. Changes in
the amount of sea ice can disrupt ocean circulation, thereby leading to changes in global climate.

Sea ice and wildlife

Sea ice provides a resting and birthing place for seals and walrus, a hunting and breeding ground
for polar bears, and a foraging ground for arctic fox, whales, caribou, and other mammals. A lack of
ice and poor ice conditions cause stress for marine mammals and ultimately affect their
livelihoods and abilities to reproduce. According to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment
Programme’s 2017 report, Snow, Water, Ice, Permafrost in the Arctic, expected reductions in sea ice
will drastically shrink marine habitats for ice-dependent seals, polar bears, and some seabirds,
likely pushing some species to extinction.

Poor ice conditions affect polar mammals in a variety of ways. If the pack ice retreats beyond the
edge of the continental shelf where walrus typically feed, they must swim great distances—up to
402 kilometers (250 miles) round trip—to reach their feeding grounds, or crowd on shores and
small islands. With disappearing sea ice, the survival of walruses is becoming a delicate issue.
Researchers erst observed large hordes of mostly females and calves on shores in 2007, when
summer Arctic sea ice reached its second-lowest minimum extent on the satellite record. In 2014,
about 35,000 walruses hauled out on a small stretch of beach in Point Lay, Alaska. Such massive
gatherings are dangerous. Crowded walruses are easily spooked. Any unfamiliar sound or smell,
such as an airplane Zying above or a whiff of a polar bear, can cause a deadly stampede such as
the one observed in 2017 in Cape Schmidt, Russia, where 500 walruses died following a
disturbance.

Thousands of walruses hauled out on a barrier island off Alaska’s northern coast in late summer 2014. Scientists
have observed this phenomenon frequently since 2010, in response to sea ice retreat. — Credit:
NOAA Climate.gov and Arctic Report Card: Update for 2015

Other mammals are struggling too. Arctic foxes have been stranded on shore with land predators,
instead of being able to migrate onto the ice. Peary caribou have been observed falling through
unusually thin ice during their migrations.

Narwhals are a species of whale that migrate closer to coasts in summer. When the winter freeze
begins, they move away from the shores and live below densely packed ice, surviving by breathing
through leads and small fractures in the ice. As spring comes, these leads open up into channels,
and the whales return to coastal bays. Sometimes dubbed the unicorn of the sea, the narwhal’s
long tusk, which is actually a tooth, may help them detect temperature, water pressure, particle
gradients, and motion. Researchers suggest that because of the sensitivity to salinity
concentrations in seawater, the male narwhal tusk may have the ability to read and navigate ice
formation in Arctic waters. The whale’s migration and behavior patterns may thus be potential
indicators of arctic climate and environmental change.

The foundation of the polar food web: phytoplankton

A phytoplankton bloom swirls north of Scandinavia in the Barents Sea, outlying the Arctic Ocean. — Credit: NASA

Although conditions are harsh, life thrives above, below, and within sea ice, which in itself is a key
component of the food web, sustaining migratory birds, esh, and other species. Sea ice fulells
fundamental functions in the seasonal rhythm of life. Sea ice offers a platform for algae to grow.
When sea ice melts in spring, the algae enters the sea and fuels a bloom of tiny marine plants,
phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are the foundation of the marine food chain. Fish feed on
phytoplankton, shrimp, and other small organisms. In turn, esh feed the seals, which feed the bears
and orcas.

Like plants on land, phytoplankton use sunlight and nutrients to produce their own food. Cold, polar
water is the perfect breeding ground for phytoplankton.

Each spring, when sea ice melts in the Arctic or Antarctic, the ice leaves behind a layer of
freshwater on the ocean surface that is full of nutrients. Though sea ice forms out of salty, ocean
water, when it freezes, the process of freezing pushes out its salt. So, when sea ice melts, layers of
freshwater Zoat above the heavier, briny waters. Microorganisms use the nutrients in the
freshwater to develop, forming the basis of the food chain.

Another source of nutrient-rich water appears when cold, dense polar water sinks to the ocean
bottom, forcing deep, nutrient-laden water to the surface. Polynyas also have rich nutrients that
support the growth of phytoplankton.

Phytoplankton blooms, rapid reproduction and growth of phytoplankton, occur in the surface water
each spring, when sunlight easily penetrates the water and provides energy. The Southern Ocean
that surrounds Antarctica is one of the most productive areas on Earth, but only during the
Antarctic summer—a few months around December—when abundant sunlight provides the perfect
conditions for phytoplankton to multiply in vast quantities.

These blooms feed krill, tiny, shrimp-like animals, which in turn are eaten by Adélie penguins,
seabirds, seals, whales, and other animals. Phytoplankton also support the development of
different species of esh. The esheries of the North Paciec Ocean and the Bering Sea are among the
most productive in the world, in part because of the large concentration of phytoplankton there.

Conventional wisdom held that phytoplankton blooms could only occur in open water, but in 2012,
a NASA-sponsored mission, Impacts of Climate on EcoSystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Paciec
Environment (ICESCAPE), discovered a massive bloom in the Chukchi Sea, under a layer of Arctic
ice.

In Antarctica, Adélie penguins depend on polynyas, where phytoplankton are abundant, throughout
much of their lives. In East Antarctica, more than 90 percent of all Adélie penguin colonies live next
to coastal polynyas. The open water provides a concentrated food source for the penguins, who
time their cycles with food availability. Adélie penguins have their chicks in the late spring or early
summer, so that food is abundant when the chicks need it.

Because phytoplankton are vital to so many different species, scientists monitor the highest
concentrations using satellites.

Different types and quantities of phytoplankton show slightly different colors when viewed from
space. The more phytoplankton present in the ocean water, the greater the concentration of plant
pigments and the greener the water. The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite
mission was designed to monitor changes in ocean color as an indicator of primary productivity,
the amount of organic material produced by phytoplankton. Visit the OceanColor Web at the NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center website.

A closer look: seals

Many different species of seal live in both Antarctica and the Arctic, and life cycles vary
considerably among species. Some species depend entirely on the presence of sea ice to survive.
Many give birth and nurse their pups on the ice, and they forage for food near the ice edge and
under the ice. Most seals never leave the ice pack, creating open breathing holes all winter, and
they make lairs under snow mounds to protect newborn pups from polar bears and from the cold
air above.

Arctic seals
Six seal species live in the
Arctic: harp, hooded, ringed,
bearded, spotted, and ribbon.
Although sea ice affects all
these seal species, harp, ringed,
and bearded seals have life
cycles that are tightly linked to
sea ice. Harp seals follow and
live at the sea ice edge all year.
In the spring, harp seals migrate
southward, assembling in large
groups to breed near the
Newfoundland and Norwegian
coasts. During late February
and early March, thousands of
harp seal females gather to A harp seal pup rests on sea ice. Harp seal pups are born with long white
deliver their babies on the White fur that helps them absorb sunlight and stay warm while they develop
Sea ice. blubber. Three or four weeks after birth, the pups shed their white fur,
which is not waterproof, to be able to swim. — Credit: laika_ac/Flickr
Ringed and bearded seals often
use holes in the ice to breathe,
and they congregate along the edges of the ice. Ringed seals use fast ice and sometimes dense
pack ice for giving birth. They require sujcient snow cover on the ice to construct birth lairs, and
the sea ice must be stable enough in the spring to rear the pups. Some ringed seals in the Okhotsk
Sea, north of Japan, regularly give birth on the exposed sea ice surface. Unlike the harp seal, the
ringed seal does not migrate to open water in the winter.

Decreasing sea ice extent would reduce the habitat available to ringed seals. Early ice breakup
could result in premature separation of mothers and pups, leading to higher death rates among
newborn pups. In the southern Baltic Sea, from 1989 to 1995, a series of nearly ice-free winters led
to high pup mortality rates. If autumn and winter are fairly mild, the ice is soft and thin and
disintegrates easily. As a result, newborn seal pups, which are born on the ice, do not have enough
time to wean properly and may not survive. Seal pups need at least 12 days on the ice before they
enish nursing.

Across the North Atlantic, sea ice cover in breeding habitats for harp seals has declined since the
start of the satellite record. Although harp seal populations can withstand occasional years of poor
ice conditions, a long-term decline in ice conditions endangers populations by increasing pup
mortality.

Antarctic seals

A seal and penguin cozy up to one another on King George Island, Antarctica. NSIDC affiliate scientist Alia Khan
studied the impacts of light absorbing impurities in snow while on a Fulbright Scholarship with the Chilean Antarctic
Program. — Credit: Alia Khan, Western Washington University

Although only four species of seal are found in Antarctica—crabeater, Weddell, leopard, and Ross—
there are many more individual seals in Antarctica than in the Arctic. This is primarily due to the
crabeater seal, which far outnumbers any other species; there are more crabeater seals than all
other seal species combined. Despite their name, crabeaters subsist almost entirely in krill, and so
they are part of the phytoplankton-based Antarctic food chain. Like Arctic seals, crabeater seals
depend on pack ice for breeding and giving birth.

Although killer whales, also known as orcas, can pose a threat, the primary predators of crabeater
seals are leopard seals. Because of their large size, leopard seals cannot move easily on sea ice,
and so crabeater seals often rest on Zoes where they are safe from predation. Clearly, a decrease
in sea ice could negatively affect crabeater seal populations by increasing predation and
decreasing breeding and birthing sites.

Sea ice characteristics also affect Weddell seals, the favorite among most Antarctic visitors
because of their placid nature. Weddell seals spend most of their time beneath fast ice, coming
onto the sea ice surface only to rest and have their pups. Modieed physiology allows Weddell seals
to spend up to 80 minutes underwater, sujcient time to hunt and search for cracks in the ice that
they can use as breathing holes.

A closer look: polar bears

A polar bear approaches the German research vessel Polarstern, which was drifting within Arctic sea ice while on its
yearlong Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition. — Credit:
Julienne Stroeve, NSIDC

Polar bears are found only in the Arctic, where they are the largest land carnivore and top predator.
Polar bears prefer multiyear ice—a thick stable, years-old sea ice—for protective cover and for a
platform to hunt their favorite food, ringed and bearded seals. During the summer, they eat very
little while they wait for the ocean to freeze. In areas such as eastern Bajn Island and Hudson Bay,
where most or all of the pack ice melts by mid- to late summer, the entire bear population must
come ashore for two to four months in summer and early fall to wait for the ice to freeze again, the
World Wildlife Fund reports.

Although polar bears are considered capable swimmers, they have not often been observed
swimming far from land. A 2006 study in Polar Biology concluded that poor sea ice cover in the
Arctic may contribute to increased polar bear mortality by forcing the animals to swim excessive
distances between land and the pack ice edge.

Since the start of the continuous satellite record in 1979, Arctic sea ice has declined in all seasons,
particularly in summer. However, sea ice has not declined the same way in all places, and polar
bear populations have experienced different fates in different parts of the Arctic. In October 2019,
the International Union for Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission-Polar Bear
Specialist Group (IUCN/SSC-PBSG) released an assessment of 19 polar bear subpopulations
across the Arctic. The subpopulations are divided based on management needs and what
biologists know about the movement and genetics of the bears. Although the researchers could
not determine population health everywhere, they found declines in four subpopulations, stability in
eve, and an increase in two.

This map shows the assessment of 19 polar bear subpopulations across the Arctic. Population health could not be
determined everywhere, but scientists found declines in four subpopulations, stability in five, and an increase in two.
— Credit: Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna/Arctic Council

Although the study found a relationship between sea ice conditions and polar bear health, that
relationship was not necessarily straightforward. In Hudson Bay, for example, female bear survival
correlated strongly with sea ice conditions, but male survival correlated primarily with subsistence-
hunting pressure from humans. Other factors could complicate the ice-bear relationship, such as
the width of the continental shelf, the preferred habitat of seals (polar bears' main food source). In
places where the continental shelf is narrow, such as the Beaufort Sea, poor sea ice conditions
could exacerbate polar bears' dijculties in catching prey. Still, the study found greater population
declines in areas with a higher number of reduced-ice days, such as the Beaufort Sea.

Sea ice and people

For early explorers of the polar regions, sea ice was a natural phenomenon that needed to be
crushed, in the most literal of senses. However, for many communities living in the Arctic, their
identity is closely tied to sea ice and its presence. Small changes in the climate or environment can
have dramatic impacts on those whose lives depend on local access to natural resources.

Antarctica has no Indigenous population and no permanent residents, though in 1959 the Antarctic
Treaty System was signed, setting Antarctica aside as a scientiec preserve that banned military
activity on the continent. As such, Antarctica today hosts a number of different research stations to
study the ice sheet, its ecology, and various natural processes.

By contrast, the Arctic is home to thriving populations of Indigenous Peoples—though relatively

small compared to other regions on Earth—mostly concentrated along the coasts. Many
communities closely rely on sea ice for travel and hunting, and to protect the coastline from strong
winter storms.

As Arctic sea ice shrinks, the world looks upon the region for its potential industrialization, to open
up shipping lanes and opportunities for resource extraction, but local communities worry about the
environmental and cultural cost.

Arctic exploration

The crew of the steam yacht America builds sledges between decks. The Ziegler polar expedition from 1903 to
1905, also known as the Fiala expedition, was a failed attempt to reach the North Pole. The expedition party
remained stranded north of the Arctic Circle for two years before being rescued, yet all but one of its members
survived. — Credit: Library of Congress

Compared to Indigenous Peoples who have lived in the Arctic for thousands of years, European
explorers are relative newcomers. Europeans started venturing north into Arctic regions of
Scandinavia and Russia only around a thousand years ago, with much exploration taking place in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Vikings from Scandinavia traveled to Greenland around A.D. 930, during an unusually mild period
throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere. They settled for a time along the south and
southwest coasts, the only habitable part of Greenland. For nearly eve centuries the Norse
settlements persevered, depending on their cattle, sheep, and goats, as well as on seal and caribou
hunts.

Contacts between the Norse settlements and the outside world ceased in the late 1400s. As the
weather got steadily colder, the pasture and farming lands shrank under the advancing ice and
snow. The rapid cooling that signaled the beginning of the Little Ice Age in the early 1300s caused
sea ice to expand over the North Atlantic, which made it impossible to navigate between Greenland
and Iceland, trapping people in their settlements and halting trade.

Russians began exploring the northern regions of their country in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, and by the seventeenth century they had explored many Arctic islands. During the
1800s, many explorers searched for a Northwest Passage, a navigable route between the Atlantic
and Paciec Oceans. Irish explorer, Sir Robert McClure, is credited with ending it in 1851, though he
conducted much of his journey over land and ice, using sledges. From 1903 to 1906, Norwegian
Roald Amundsen led the erst expedition to successfully sail through the Northwest Passage. The
erst reported person to reach the North Pole is American explorer, Robert Edwin Peary. He
reputedly accomplished this in 1909, just beating Frederick Cook. However there are doubts
whether Cook reached the pole erst, or whether either of them successfully reached the North Pole.

Indigenous Peoples

An Iñuit family sits in front of a hut covered in seal skins in Alaska. E. H. Harriman took the photo in 1899, when he
led a team of twenty-three scientists, including the naturalist John Muir, on a two month expedition to explore the
waters and coastal territory of Alaska. — Credit: Library of Congress

When visiting scientists study the Arctic in the eeld, they generally stay for a few weeks or months.
In contrast, Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic are in their homeland; they continuously observe and
interact with the environment through daily activities that change on a cyclical basis depending on
animal migrations, weather patterns, and other environmental phenomena. Because Indigenous
Peoples have lived in the Arctic for millennia, their observations and knowledge have been passed
down across generations. As the Arctic warms at two to three times the rate as the rest of the
planet, Indigenous Peoples and residents of the North play an important role in understanding the
changes taking place. As such, local observations are an integral part of research on the changing
Arctic.

Approximately 4 million people are spread across the Arctic. About 13 percent, or half a million, are
Indigenous Peoples: Aleuts, Athabaskans, Gwich’in, Yup’ik, Iñupiat, Sami, and many others living in
the Russian Arctic like the Nenets and Chukchi. However, 13.1 million people live in the greater
circumpolar North, which includes the Arctic and Subarctic. According to the Arctic Centre at the
University of Lapland, approximately 10 percent—more than one million people—are Indigenous
Peoples. About 75 percent of all Indigenous People live in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland.
About 40 different ethnic groups live in the Arctic. Great variation of cultural, historical, and
economic backgrounds distinguishes the groups, along with distinct language, culture, and
traditional livelihoods such as hunting, eshing, and reindeer herding. A common feature, however, is
that these groups have experienced signiecant impacts of colonization and globalization. Together,
they all face a persistent threat: climate change.

Annica Länta, a Sami in Lapland, northern Finland, herds reindeer on a snowmobile. — Credit:
Michiel van Nimwegen/Flickr

Indigenous Peoples do not see sea ice as a barrier, as many European explorers of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries observed. With few exceptions, Indigenous settlements dot
the coasts with easy access to the sea, which serves as a primary means of transportation. As
stated in the 2014 Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) statement, The Sea Never Stops: Circumpolar
Inuit ReZections on Sea Ice Use and Shipping in Inuit Nunaat, “The usually ice-covered sea is our
highway, the only physical connection between many of our communities and the only way we can
access many of the animals we depend on for food.”

When sea ice conditions change, the migratory animals that depend on sea ice adjust, changing
their patterns. Indigenous Peoples depend on sea ice to move freely and over great distances. In
Iqirasik, Greenland, Abel Ludvigsen, stated the following in a 2014 interview with ICC:

Back [in the 1940s and 50s] we would wait for the sea to freeze because when it froze the
Mammals would come and when the fjords froze to ice then the mammals would come. When the
fjords melted and the mammals were moving out again we would hunt for them again. Now in
these days the fjords don’t freeze as much and the sea ice is not as far and thick anymore. This
results in the sea mammals not coming to the fjords.

For the same 2014 report, Albert Nikolayeich Ankalin, another community member from the
Providnesky District, a Russian district bordering the Bering Sea to the east and south, stated:

Now, for example, it’s mostly small ice that passes by our village and there is a lot of it. This makes
it more problematic for us to go to sea plus there are no animals on small ice. In the past, all the ice
that passed was big—whole eelds of ice, often with walruses Zoating on them. There are winters
now without any ice; it also happens that there is a lot of slush. Yes, there are changes, and many Hỗ trợ
Privacy settings
of them not in our favor. It used to be better when the ice was thicker and bigger—there were many