Sea-ice production in the northern Japan Sea

•Sea-ice production in the Tatar Strait polynya of the Japan Sea was estimated.•The satellite microwave algorithm well represents the polynya as a thin ice area.•The estimated ice production is about twice as large as that by previous study.•This study raises a possibility of dense water formation by the high ice production.•The ice production was decreased by ~5%/decade by rapid air temperature warming.

Sinking of the dense water plays a significant role in the global climate system by driving thermohaline (overturning) circulation and biogeochemical cycles. Deep water convection occurs also in the Japan Sea, and the convection has been considered to be mainly caused by intense cooling of the sea surface. Another possible cause of the convection is brine rejection associated with high sea-ice production in a coastal polynya (thin sea-ice) area in the northern Japan Sea. We have developed an algorithm which detects the thin ice area and estimates the thickness using passive microwave satellite data. Based on a heat flux calculation with the satellite-derived ice thickness, the total sea-ice production in winter (December-March) averaged over 2002/03-2010/11 is estimated to be 4.27 × 1010 m3. This indicates that the ice production was underestimated by about half in a previous study in which the polynya was unrealistically treated as a low ice concentration area. The main determinant factor for the total ice production is the surface air temperature in early winter (December-January), which shows a rapid warming trend of 0.7 °C/decade for this 40-years. Based on a linear regression approach, the total ice production is estimated to have decreased by ~5%/decade due to air temperature warming. If brine rejection due to the ice production contributes to the deep water formation in the Japan Sea, this is consistent with the fact that the deep water formation has been decreasing for the last 50-100 years.