Hi,
Apologies if this stupid question has been asked and answered before, but from time to time I read the assumption, that a low minimum of summer sea ice leads to a lot of heat being radiated from the sea in winter, thus leading to a "recovery" year the next summer. The assumption is that the ocean loses so much heat in winter, that sea ice melt is affected the next summer.
However, I've not seen anyone substantiate that claim. Is the ocean really physically able to lose a significant fraction of its heat content during the winter? There's a lot of heat in the arctic water column and my gut feeling is that the heat lost during winter is really rather insignificant in comparison, even if we start from a BOE.
Naturally, a strong halocline and very little mixing will give a very cold upper layer, but since most of the ice still melts out in the summer, there must still be some significant mixing going on, even in ice covered waters, replacing the heat lost in winter to radiation.
Long story short: I would assume that any heat lost from open waters to radiation in winter, is insignificant compared to the total energy content of the arctic ocean and easily replaced from deeper water due to mixing. Any "recovery" seen the next year is, in my mind, therefore more likely caused by weather than due to this lost heat.
Am I totally wrong?
Thanks :-)