Abstract
Over the past few decades, the Arctic sea ice cover has rapidly shifted from consisting largely of thicker multiyear ice to predominantly thinner first-year ice. While ice-albedo feedback and reductions in overall ice extent have received a great deal of attention, here we explore this critical transition in ice type and the implications of a younger ice pack. We quantify a distinct, overlooked mechanism: the topography-albedo feedback. It provides fundamental context to recent losses of multiyear ice and shows how a younger, smoother ice pack amplifies Arctic warming. We develop a numerical model for the temporal evolution of an idealized sea ice pack, validated by field data. This quantitatively shows how meter-scale differences in surface topography mechanistically alter summertime melt pond evolution, dramatically lowering albedo for younger, smoother ice. We discuss how changes in the age of the Arctic ice pack, irrespective of changes in extent, induce this nonlinear feedback effect, reinforcing the shift toward a younger Arctic ice cover.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the work of Julia Ditto (jditto.illustration@gmail.com), who illustrated Figs. 1 and 4. We also wish to warmly thank Rebecca L. Hardenbrook for many helpful conversations and support throughout the early stages of this work. Finally, we are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their comments, which significantly improved the manuscript.
Funding
D.E.G. discloses funding from the Applied and Computational Analysis Program at the US Office of Naval Research through grant N00014-21-1-2909, from the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through Grants DMS-2136198 and DMS-2206171, and from the University of Utah Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy. TPE discloses funding from the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through Grant DMS-2136198. KMG discloses funding from the Applied and Computational Analysis Program at the US Office of Naval Research through grants N00014-18-1-2552, N00014-21-1-2909 and N00014-26-1-2114, and from the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through Grants DMS-2136198 and DMS-2206171.
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Gluckman, D.E., Evans, T.P. & Golden, K.M. Topography-albedo feedback reinforces the transition to a younger Arctic ice pack. Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03636-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03636-3
