Experimental evidence for a universal threshold characterizing wave-induced sea ice break-up

Voermans, Joey; Rabault, Jean; Filchuk, Kirill; Ryzhov, Ivan; Heil, P̀etra; Marchenko, Aleksey; Collins, Clarence O.; Dabboor, Mohammed; Sutherland, Graig; Babanin, Alexander V.

doi:10.5194/tc-14-4265-2020

Cited by 23 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…, 100 obtained with MEEM (using the original mode numbering of Kohout et al, 2007). Based on ξ(x, t), the maximum bending stress σ max was determined as σ max 0.5h i E i max t ∈ [0,T p ) z 2 ξ/zx 2 (see, e.g., Dumont et al, 2011;Voermans et al, 2020). The location of that maximum x b is treated as the potential breaking position.…”

Section: Observed Floe Sizes As a Results Of Wave-induced Breakupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The location of that maximum x b is treated as the potential breaking position. In the further analysis, only cases with σ max > σ b were used, with the flexural strength of the ice σ b 0.4 MPa, typical for first-year ice (e.g., Timco and Weeks, 2010;Voermans et al, 2020). Thus, the obtained dataset (1386 cases, i.e., 92% of the initial 1512) represents situations when incident waves of 1 m height were sufficient to break the ice.…”

Section: Observed Floe Sizes As a Results Of Wave-induced Breakupmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sizes and Shapes of Sea Ice Floes Broken by Waves–A Case Study From the East Antarctic Coast

Herman

Wenta

Cheng³

2021

Front. Earth Sci.

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The floe size distribution (FSD) is an important characteristics of sea ice, influencing several physical processes that take place in the oceanic and atmospheric boundary layers under/over sea ice, as well as within sea ice itself. Through complex feedback loops involving those processes, FSD might modify the short-term and seasonal evolution of the sea ice cover, and therefore significant effort is undertaken by the scientific community to better understand FSD-related effects and to include them in sea ice models. An important part of that effort is analyzing the FSD properties and variability in different ice and forcing conditions, based on airborne and satellite imagery. In this work we analyze a very high resolution (pixel size: 0.3 m) satellite image of sea ice from a location off the East Antarctic coast (65.6°S, 101.9°E), acquired on February 16, 2019. Contrary to most previous studies, the ice floes in the image have angular, polygonal shapes and a narrow size distribution. We show that the observed FSD can be represented as a weighted sum of two probability distributions, a Gaussian and a tapered power law, with the Gaussian part clearly dominating in the size range of floes that contribute over 90% to the total sea ice surface area. Based on an analysis of the weather, wave and ice conditions in the period preceding the day in question, we discuss the most probable scenarios that led to the breakup of landfast ice into floes visible in the image. Finally, theoretical arguments backed up by a series of numerical simulations of wave propagation in sea ice performed with a scattering model based on the Matched Eigenfunction Expansion Method are used to show that the observed dominating floe size in the three different regions of the image (18, 13 and 51 m, respectively) agree with those expected as a result of wave-induced breaking of landfast ice.

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Section: Observed Floe Sizes As a Results Of Wave-induced Breakupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Observed Floe Sizes As a Results Of Wave-induced Breakupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sizes and Shapes of Sea Ice Floes Broken by Waves–A Case Study From the East Antarctic Coast

Herman

Wenta

Cheng³

2021

Front. Earth Sci.

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“…As the critical breaking strain ε c = σ/Y* is a function of the flexural strength of the ice (σ) and the effective Young's Modulus (Y*), λ is the wave length, the wave-induced sea ice break-up parameter can be written as in Dumont et al [14] and Voermans et al [24]:…”

Section: Wave-induced Sea Ice Break-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, further adequate spatial and temporal coverage studies are required to fully understand the FSDs and accurately parameterize the ice lateral melt rate. Recently, Voermans et al [24] proposed a sea ice breaking criterion which can separate well observations of wave-induced break-up and non-break-up events but does not reply on FSD. However, this wave-induced sea ice break-up parameterization has not been implemented in an ice model to investigate the impact of wave-induced sea ice break-up on ice evolution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Wave-Induced Sea Ice Break-Up and Mixing in a High-Resolution Coupled Ice-Ocean Model

Babanin

Liu

et al. 2021

JMSE

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Arctic sea ice plays a vital role in modulating the global climate. In the most recent decades, the rapid decline of the Arctic summer sea ice cover has exposed increasing areas of ice-free ocean, with sufficient fetch for waves to develop. This has highlighted the complex and not well-understood nature of wave-ice interactions, requiring modeling effort. Here, we introduce two independent parameterizations in a high-resolution coupled ice-ocean model to investigate the effects of wave-induced sea ice break-up (through albedo change) and mixing on the Arctic sea ice simulation. Our results show that wave-induced sea ice break-up leads to increases in sea ice concentration and thickness in the Bering Sea, the Baffin Sea and the Barents Sea during the ice growth season, but accelerates the sea ice melt in the Chukchi Sea and the East Siberian Sea in summer. Further, wave-induced mixing can decelerate the sea ice formation in winter and the sea ice melt in summer by exchanging the heat fluxes between the surface and subsurface layer. As our baseline model underestimates sea ice cover in winter and produces more sea ice in summer, wave-induced sea ice break-up plays a positive role in improving the sea ice simulation. This study provides two independent parameterizations to directly include the wave effects into the sea ice models, with important implications for the future sea ice model development.

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“…On a scale larger than our measurements, the frazil ice is a damping component in the setting of floe plus frazil ice. Under high agitation, viscosity will again be changed due to the direct interaction of floes with each other by impact and by breakup of rafts [25]. The largest scale concerns wave attenuation on the 100 m to 100 km scale where completely effective media values come into play, which ultimately determine the interaction of the ice field with the atmosphere on a global scale [26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frazil Ice in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone

Paul

Mielke

Schwarz

et al. 2021

JMSE

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Frazil ice, consisting of loose disc-shaped ice crystals, is the first ice that forms in the annual cycle in the marginal ice zone (MIZ) of the Antarctic. A sufficient number of frazil ice crystals form the surface “grease ice” layer, playing a fundamental role in the freezing processes in the MIZ. As soon as the ocean waves are sufficiently damped by a frazil ice cover, a closed ice cover can form. In this article, we investigate the rheological properties of frazil ice, which has a crucial influence on the growth of sea ice in the MIZ. An in situ test setup for measuring temperature and rheological properties was developed. Frazil ice shows shear thinning flow behavior. The presented measurements enable real-data-founded modelling of the annual ice cycle in the MIZ.

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Experimental evidence for a universal threshold characterizing wave-induced sea ice break-up

Cited by 23 publications

References 55 publications

Sizes and Shapes of Sea Ice Floes Broken by Waves–A Case Study From the East Antarctic Coast

Sizes and Shapes of Sea Ice Floes Broken by Waves–A Case Study From the East Antarctic Coast

Effects of Wave-Induced Sea Ice Break-Up and Mixing in a High-Resolution Coupled Ice-Ocean Model

Frazil Ice in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone

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