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Polar sea ice is ever-changing. It shrinks, expands, moves, breaks apart, reforms in response to changing seasons, and rapid climate change. It is far from a homogenous layer of frozen water on the ocean's surface, but rather a dynamic mix of water and ice, as well as minute pockets of air and brine encased in the ice.

New research led by University of Utah mathematicians and climate scientists is generating fresh models for understanding two critical processes in the sea ice system that have profound influences on global climate: the flux of heat through sea ice, thermally linking the ocean and atmosphere, and the dynamics of the marginal ice zone, or MIZ, a serpentine region of the Arctic sea ice cover that separates dense pack ice from open ocean.

In the last four decades, since satellite imagery became widely available, the width of the MIZ has grown by 40% and its northern edge has migrated 1,600 kilometers northward, according to Court Strong, a professor of atmospheric sciences.

"It has also shifted toward the pole while the size of the sea ice pack has declined," said Strong, a co-author on one of two studies published by U scientists in recent weeks. "Most of these changes have happened in the fall, around the time when sea ice reaches its seasonal minimum."

A tale of two studies, one north and one south

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