Emergence of pancake ice in the western Arctic Ocean is understood to be an effect of the increasing wave activity. During the 2018 R/V Mirai field campaign in the refreezing Chukchi Sea, we obtained observational evidence of sea ice formation that resembled the pancake cycle—frazil/pancake/consolidated pancake ice—first discovered and known to be ubiquitous in the Antarctic. Apparently, R/V Mirai encountered a sequence of environmental conditions that were conducive to producing coagulated pancake ice, of which the formation process was relatable to the Antarctic consolidated pancake ice. We investigate how pancake ice form in two different environments: the Antarctic marginal ice zone (MIZ) is adjacent to the vigorous Antarctic Circumpolar region whereas the western Arctic Ocean is surrounded by sea ice and land. We found that a key distinction between the two regimes is that rafting is less likely in the western Arctic Ocean due to its wave climate, meaning the coagulated pancake ice is thinner than the Antarctic consolidated pancake ice. As the sea ice extent declines, thinner coagulated pancake ice may dominate the refreezing ocean, which affects the melting and possibly the broader Arctic climate.

在北冰洋西部，薄煎饼冰的出现被认为是波浪活动增加的影响。在2018年的R / V Mirai重冻楚科奇海实地考察活动中，我们获得了类似于冰煎饼循环（巴西/煎饼/合并的煎饼冰）的海冰形成的观测证据，该冰首次发现并已知在南极普遍存在。显然，R / V Mirai遇到了一系列有利于产生凝结的煎饼冰的环境条件，其形成过程与南极固结的煎饼冰有关。我们研究了煎饼冰在两种不同环境中的形成方式：南极边缘冰区（MIZ）与活跃的南极绕极地区相邻，而北冰洋西部被海冰和陆地包围。我们发现，这两种方式之间的主要区别在于，北冰洋西部地区由于波浪气候而漂流的可能性较小，这意味着凝结的薄煎饼冰比南极固结的薄煎饼冰薄。随着海冰面积的减少，凝结的薄煎饼冰越稀薄，就可能在重新冰冻的海洋中占主导地位，这会影响融化并可能影响更广泛的北极气候。