This location provides a study area where sea ice forms along the coast in the winter, and generally melts or breaks away by mid July. Changes in the timing of coastal sea ice breakup, and in the location of offshore sea ice, have significant local impacts; ecological, biological, and human. Information recorded over long periods is required to understand and model the dynamics of sea ice and how changes or trends may develop and influence other systems.

The town of Barrow, Alaska, is on the coast of the Beaufort Sea. Landfast ice forms along the coast in the winter, and generally melts or breaks away by mid July. At this time of year the pack ice can be close to shore (as in 2006) or farther off shore (as in 2007). Changes in the timing of fast ice breakup, and in the location of pack ice offshore, have significant local impacts. For example, subsistence hunters use ice as a hunting platform, polar bears hunt on the ice, favoring the biologically productive ice edge, and barges and other non-ice-strengthened vessels re-supply the North Slope when fast ice is gone. The image series monitors changes in the timing of fast ice breakup, and gives information on smaller scale properties of ice, such as the number and orientation of pressure ridges, that help biologists understand how ice is used by polar bears. (Weathered ice ridges are the light linear features in the 2006 image).

This region has been the site of many field studies since the International Geophysical Year 1957/58. The ice in this region is the most studied and best known. It has been the locale of many studies of the surface heat budget, as well as submarine sonar cross sections.

Arctic ice is retreating; a trend overlain with considerable year to year variability. This site is near the edge of the ice pack. In the 24 hour darkness and cold of winter, any open water freezes quickly. In summer, as shown here, ponds of meltwater form on the surface. These dark pools absorb more of summertime's solar radiation than does the surrounding ice, enhancing melting. Pond coverage monitored over time contributes to estimates of surface reflectivity that are needed to model the response of sea ice to changing climate.

This region of the Arctic Ocean, prior to 2007, was near the climatological boundary between older multi year ice, and thinner first year ice that tends to melt away every summer. In 2007, ice receded to a latitude far north of this site. Sea ice at this location is a mix of thicker multi year ice, that generally does not melt away in the summer, and thinner first year ice. Usually one type predominates. This is first year ice in 2008, due to the extreme ice retreat of 2007. First year ice has characteristics that differ from those of older, thicker, multi year ice.

This region typically contains the oldest and thickest ice with the longest residence time in the Arctic Basin.

The Fram Strait between Greenland and Spitsbergen is the dominant exit route of sea ice from the Arctic Basin into the Greenland Sea. The amount of low salinity ice exported is an important component of the basin-wide ice balance and potentially impacts the global ocean circulation.

This oceanic region produces most of the first-year ice and was judged to be most sensitive to inter annual changes of oceanic and atmospheric forcing. This has been borne out by the extreme negative anomaly of ice extent in the autumn of 2007.