Estimating Arctic sea ice thickness from satellite-based ice history

A novel method is presented for estimating Arctic sea ice thickness by reconstructing its thermodynamic growth history from satellite-derived ice motion and concentration data. Using observations from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) and AMSR2, backward trajectories of virtual sea ice particles were tracked to determine their formation date and subsequent drift path. Surface heat budget calculations were performed to estimate daily thermodynamic growth at each particle’s location from the time of formation. Sea ice thickness was estimated by scaling the accumulated daily thermodynamic growth based on comparisons with upward-looking sonar (ULS) observations. The estimated ice thickness successfully reproduced the seasonal and interannual variability observed in the in situ data. These findings demonstrate that satellite-derived sea ice histories provide a robust basis for estimating sea ice thickness across the Arctic, opening new possibilities for retrieving difficult-to-observe sea ice properties through reconstructions of their historical evolution.