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The cover of sea ice suppresses wind stress and wind mixing, reflects a large proportion of incoming solar radiation, imposes an upper limit on the surface temperature, and impedes evaporation. Wind and water stresses keep the ice pack in almost continuous motion, causing the formation of cracks (leads), open ponds (polynya), and pressure ridges. Along these ridges the pack ice may be locally stacked high and project downward 33–80 feet (about 10–25 metres) into the ocean. Besides its deterrence to the exchange of energy between the ocean and the atmosphere, the formation of sea ice generates vast quantities of cold water that help drive the circulation of the world ocean system.
Sea ice rarely forms in the open ocean below a latitude of 60° N but does occur in more southerly enclosed bays, rivers, and seas. Between about 60° and 75° N the occurrence of sea ice is seasonal, and there is usually a period of the year when the water is ice-free. Above a latitude of 75° N there is a more or less permanent ice cover. Even there, however, as much as 10 percent of the area consists of open water owing to the continual opening of leads and polynyas.
In the process of freezing, the salt in seawater is expelled as brine. The degree to which this rejection takes place increases as the rate of freezing decreases. Typically, newly formed sea ice has a salinity of 4 to 6 0/00. Even after freezing the process of purification continues but at a much slower rate. By the time the ice is one year old, it is sufficiently salt-free to be melted for drinking. This year-old, or older, salt-free sea ice is referred to as multiyear sea ice or polar pack. It can be distinguished by its smoother, rounded surface and pale blue colour. Younger ice is more jagged and grayer in colour. Because the hardness and strength of ice increases as the salts are expelled, polar pack is a special threat to shipping. First-year ice has a characteristic thickness of up to 6 feet (2 metres), whereas multiyear ice averages about 12 feet (about 4 metres) in thickness.
There is no direct evidence as to the onset of the Arctic Ocean ice cover. The origin of the ice pack was influenced by a number of factors, such as the formation of terrestrial ice caps and the interaction of the Arctic and North Atlantic waters—with their different temperature and salinity structures—with atmospheric climate variables. What can be inferred from available data is that there was not a continuous ice cover throughout the Pleistocene Epoch (i.e., about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago). Rather, there was a continually warm ocean until approximately 2,000,000 years ago, followed by a permanent ice pack about 850,000 years ago.
Sea ice cover has fluctuated throughout the Holocene Epoch (11,700 years ago to the present) in response to changes in sea levels and the increases in coastline elevation following the retreat of the Pleistocene ice sheets (see isostasy). These fluctuations were largely centred in the eastern Arctic Ocean during multiyear warm episodes, where ice cover would advance and retreat with the seasons. In the late 20th century, however, Arctic sea ice coverage declined persistently (about 3 percent per decade since 1978) in response to the effects of global warming, which lifts regional near-surface air temperatures above freezing for long portions of the year and which has caused the Arctic to warm nearly four times as rapidly as the rest of the world since 1979.
