Most of the Arctic "sea ice baby" melts before she leaves the nursery. And that's a problem.

Sea ice born in the shallow seas off Russia seldom leaves her nursery before succumbing to melting.

A new study reveals that two decades ago, half of the sea ice formed near Russia's Arctic coast traveled downwind in the Arctic Ocean and via the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard before melting. Today, only about 20% of the ice born near Russia makes this trip.

This is a big problem, said Thomas Krumpen, head of the study, Ocean Ice Physicist at the Helmholtz Center of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. Sea ice formed in shallow waters holds many small particles, from sediment to algae to microplastic pollution, iron and other nutrients. When ice melts on the spot rather than moving, it affects the distribution of these substances.

"How will this shift in transportation affect the biogeochemical cycle in the Arctic Ocean as well as the ecosystem?" Krumpen said. "All this is misunderstood." [10 Things You Need to Know About Arctic Sea Ice]

Premature iron

Tracking sea ice is a challenge because the Arctic is usually cloud-covered, away from the prying eyes of weather satellites. Krumpen and his colleagues have developed a method to get around the problem by using satellites with microwave imagery to see through the clouds. They can follow the formation of ice according to characteristics such as its texture and brightness.

Sea ice that forms in less than 30 meters of water in the seas of Barents, Kara, Laptev, and eastern Siberia is generally blown north by strong offshore winds to the central Arctic Ocean Krumpen explained to Live Science. Finally, he is caught in a current called the Transpolar Drift, which circulates it south of the Fram Strait. The ice belt has accelerated in recent years, said Krumpen, as the sea ice thins and the thinner ice drifts faster. Some scientists have speculated that this speed increase may help offset the decline in ice, as the ice it contains could move farther, faster, before melting.

The new research throws cold water on this notion. Using data from 1998 to 2017, researchers found that melting occurred too quickly to offset the increase in ice speed. Every decade, 17 percent less Russian shallow water ice reaches the Fram Strait, Krumpen and his colleagues reported today (April 2) in Scientific Reports.

Caught in the drift

With the help of aerial ice surveys, the team also found that the ice that reaches the Fram Strait comes largely from the open waters of the central Arctic Ocean, rather than the coast of Russia, where the continental shelf expands. In the early 2000s, it was 30% thinner than ice in Fram Strait.

"It's the connection to [continental] shelf seas that are lost, "said Krumpen.

Once this connection is cut, sediments, nutrients, algae and other coastal materials may remain near the shore instead of reaching the ocean. Researchers are now trying to understand how this disruption of nutrient transport is affecting the Arctic ecosystem. Herculean effort ahead should help: In September, international researchers will launch an expedition to deliberately freeze an icebreaker in the ice of the transpolar drift. Mission scientists, known as MOSAiC, will take biological and chemical samples for a full year, Krumpen said.

"We need to better understand the life cycle of these biogeochemical components," he said.

Originally published on Science live.