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The Barents Sea is one of the fastest changing regions of the Arctic, and has experienced the strongest decline in winter-time sea-ice area in the Arctic, at -23 +/- 4% per decade. Sea-ice thickness in the Barents Sea is not well studied. We present two previously unpublished helicopter-borne electromagnetic (HEM) ice thickness measurements from the northwestern Barents Sea acquired in March 2003 and 2014. The HEM data are compared to ice thickness calculated from ice draft measured by ULS deployed between 1994 and 1996. These data show that ice thickness varies greatly from year to year; influenced by the thermodynamic and dynamic processes that govern local formation vs long-range advection. In a year with a large inflow of sea-ice from the Arctic Basin, the Barents Sea ice cover is dominated by thick multiyear ice; as was the case in 2003 and 1995. In a year with an ice cover that was mainly grown in situ, the ice will be thin and mechanically unstable; as was the case in 2014. The HEM data allow us to explore the spatial and temporal variability in ice thickness. In 2003 the dominant ice class was more than 2 years old; and modal sea-ice thickness varied regionally from 0.6 to 1.4 m, with the thinner ice being either first-year ice, or multiyear ice which had come into contact with warm Atlantic water. In 2014 the ice cover was predominantly locally grown ice less than 1 month old (regional modes of 0.5–0.8 m). These two situations represent two extremes of a range of possible ice thickness distributions that can present very different conditions for shipping traffic; or have a different impact on heat transport from ocean to atmosphere.

Spectral albedo and transmittance in the range 400-900nm were measured on three separate dates on less than 15 cm thick new Arctic sea ice growing on Kongsfjorden, Svalbard at 78: 9 degrees N, 11: 9 degrees E. Inherent optical properties, including absorption coefficients of particulate and dissolved material, were obtained from ice samples and fed into a radiative transfer model, which was used to analyze spectral albedo and transmittance and to study the influence of clouds and snow on these. Integrated albedo and transmittance for photosynthetically active radiation (400-900 nm) were in the range 0.17-0.21 and 0.77-0.86, respectively. The average albedo and transmittance of the total solar radiation energy were 0.16 and 0.51, respectively. Values inferred from the model indicate that the ice contained possibly up to 40% brine and only 0.6% bubbles. Angular redistribution of solar radiation by clouds and snow was found to influence both the wavelength-integrated value and the spectral shape of albedo and transmittance. In particular, local peaks and depressions in the spectral albedo and spectral transmittance were found for wavelengths within atmospheric absorption bands. Simulated and measured transmittance spectra were within 5% for most of the wavelength range, but deviated up to 25% in the vicinity of 800 nm, indicating the need for more optical laboratory measurements of pure ice, or improved modeling of brine optical properties in this near-infrared wavelength region.

A Spectral Radiation Buoy (SRB) was developed to autonomously measure the spectral incident, reflected, and transmitted spectral solar radiation (350-800 nm) above and below sea ice. The SRB was deployed on drifting first-year sea ice near the North Pole in mid-April 2012, together with velocity and ice mass balance buoys. The buoys drifted southward and reached Fram Strait after approximately 7 months, covering a complete melt season. At the SRB site, snowmelt started on 10 June, and had completely disappeared by 14 July. Surface albedo was above 0.85 until snowmelt onset and decreased rapidly with the progression of snowmelt. Albedo was lowest on 14 July, when the observed surface was likely a mixture of bare ice and melt pond(s). The transmitted irradiance measured under the ice was largest in July, with a monthly average of 20 W m(-2), compared to <0.3 W m(-2) premelt. Under-ice irradiance peaked on 19-20 July, with a daily average around 35 W m(-2). From mid-April to mid-September, the solar energy transmitted through the ice into the ocean contributed about two-thirds of the energy required for the observed bottom melt (0.49 m). The energy absorbed by the ice after snowmelt was enough to melt an additional 0.1 m of ice. Solar energy incident on open water and melt ponds provided significant additional heating, indicating solar heating could explain all of the observed bottom melt in this region in summer 2012.

The Arctic sea ice cover is rapidly shrinking, but a direct, longer-term assessment of the ice thinning remains challenging. A new time series constructed from in situ measurements of sea ice thickness at the end of the melt season in Fram Strait shows a thinning by over 50% during 2003-2012. The modal and mean ice thickness along 79 degrees N decreased at a rate of 0.3 and 0.2 m yr(-1), respectively, with long-term averages of 2.5 and 3 m. Airborne observations reveal an east-west thickness gradient across the strait in spring but not in summer due to advection from more different source regions. There is no clear relationship between interannual ice thickness variability and the source regions of the ice. The observed thinning is therefore likely a result of Arctic-wide reduction in ice thickness with a potential shift in exported ice types playing a minor role.