The Marginal Ice Zone includes wide areas covered by dispersed ice floes in which wave conditions are significantly affected by the ice. When the wind blows from the solid ice pack, towards the open sea, growing waves are scattered by the floes, and their spectral characteristics modified. To further understand this problem, a model for the evolution of wind waves in a sparse field of ice floes has been developed. The sea state is described by a two-dimensional discrete spectrum. Time-limited wave growth is obtained by numerical integration of the energy balance equation using the exact nonlinear transfer integral. Wave scattering by a single floe is represented in terms of far-field expressions of the diffracted and forced potentials obtained numerically by the Green function method. The combined effect of a homogeneous field of floes on the wave spectrum is expressed in terms of the Foldy–Twersky integral equations under the assumption of single scattering. The results show a strong dependence of the spectrum amplitude and directional properties on the ratio of the ice floe diameter to the wavelength. For a certain range of this parameter, the ice cover appears to be very effective in dispersing the energy; the wave spectrum rapidly tends to isotropy, a tendency which prevents the normal growth of wave energy and the decrease in peak frequency. Therefore, in the Marginal Ice Zone, the ability of an offshore wind to generate a significant wave field is severely limited.

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