Acoustic Velocity-Based Inversion of the Physical Properties of Sea Ice in the Central Arctic Region

Studying the Arctic sea ice contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the climate system in polar regions and offers valuable insights into the interplay between polar climate change and the global climate and environment. One of the key research aspects is the investigation of the temperature, salinity, and density parameters of sea ice to obtain essential insights. During the 11th Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition, acoustic velocity was measured on an ice core at a short-term ice station, however, temperature, salinity, and density were not measured. In the present work, we utilized a genetic algorithm to invert these obtained acoustic velocity data to sea ice temperature, salinity, and density parameters on the basis of the relationship between acoustic velocity and the physical properties of Arctic summer sea ice. We validated the effectiveness of this inversion procedure by comparing its findings with those of other researchers. The results indicate that within the normalized depth range of 0.43–0.94, the ranges for temperature, salinity, and density are −0.48-−0.29 °C, 1.63–3.35, and 793.1–904.1 kgm −3 , respectively.