Abstract:

Marine environmental assessment is critical for marine ecosystem protection. Because of the harsh en-vironment and lack of continuous monitoring data, it is extremely difficult to evaluate the polar marine en-vironment. In view of the lack of assessment criteria specific for the polar marine environment, this study conducted a literature review and examined four characteristics of the polar marine environment: sea surface chlorophyll concentration, sea ice extent, sea surface temperature and salinity. A polar marine environmental assessment model is proposed, integrating the four characteristics as independent variables in a cubic polynomial function to describe the relationship between sea ice extent and month of the year. A validation method is presented and was used to test and verify the assessment model using sea surface chlorophyll concentration, temperature and salinity data collected on the 30th, 31st, and 32nd Chinese National Antarctic Research Expeditions and sea ice extent data downloaded from the National Snow and Ice Data Center of the United States. Results demonstrated the effectiveness of the assessment model and its validation method, and showed that the model can be used to determine the trend of polar marine environments relative to specified baselines.

Key words: polar marine, environmental assessment, assessment model