Abstract: Under current climate change conditions, Arctic sea ice has become a key scientific topic, because of its close connection with global climate. Sea ice thickness, important for material and energy exchanges between the atmosphere, sea ice and oceans, is also an indicator of climate change. In the last 40 years, Arctic sea ice cover has rapidly shrunk, ice thickness has markedly decreased, and ice melt has strongly accelerated. These changes have markedly affected the climate system at the regional and global scale. Summarizing previous research results, this paper comprehensively describes the thermodynamic and dynamic processes affecting Arctic sea ice thickness. Thermodynamically, sea ice thickness is affected by atmospheric variables including ice characteristics, air temperature, water vapor, rainfall, snowfall and cloud cover, through the sea ice surface radiation budget and turbulent heat exchange (sensible and latent heat). Moreover, the ocean heat flux affecting sea ice thickness results from upper ocean heating by solar radiation, vertical mixing induced by wind stress, and warm water input from middle and low latitudes. Dynamically, the interaction between wind stress and ocean currents generates sea ice transport and deformation, thereby affecting the sea ice thickness. In summary, climate variability induces additive forcing from these thermodynamic and dynamic processes on sea ice thickness variation.

Key words: Arctic sea ice, sea ice thickness, thermodynamics, dynamics