A prognostic model of the sea-ice floe size and thickness distribution

نویسنده

  • C. Horvat
چکیده

Sea ice exhibits considerable seasonal and longerterm variations in extent, concentration, thickness, and age, and is characterized by a complex and continuously changing distribution of floe sizes and thicknesses, particularly in the marginal ice zone (MIZ). Models of sea ice used in current climate models keep track of its concentration and of the distribution of ice thicknesses, but do not account for the floe size distribution and its potential effects on air–sea exchange and sea-ice evolution. Accurately capturing sea-ice variability in climate models may require a better understanding and representation of the distribution of floe sizes and thicknesses. We develop and demonstrate a model for the evolution of the joint sea-ice floe size and thickness distribution that depends on atmospheric and oceanic forcing fields. The model accounts for effects due to multiple processes that are active in the MIZ and seasonal ice zones: freezing and melting along the lateral side and base of floes, mechanical interactions due to floe collisions (ridging and rafting), and seaice fracture due to wave propagation in the MIZ. The model is then examined and demonstrated in a series of idealized test cases.

برای دانلود رایگان متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Wind and wave influences on sea ice floe size and leads in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas during the summerfall transition 2014

Sea ice floe size distribution and lead properties in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas are studied in the summer-fall transition 2014 to examine the impact on the sea ice cover from storms and surface waves. Floe size distributions are analyzed from MEDEA, Landsat8, and RADARSAT-2 imagery, with a resolution span of 1–100 m. Landsat8 imagery is also used to identify the orientation and spacing of l...

متن کامل

Sea ice floe size distribution in the marginal ice zone: Theory and numerical experiments

To better describe the state of sea ice in the marginal ice zone (MIZ) with floes of varying thicknesses and sizes, both an ice thickness distribution (ITD) and a floe size distribution (FSD) are needed. In this work, we have developed a FSD theory that is coupled to the ITD theory of Thorndike et al. (1975) in order to explicitly simulate the evolution of FSD and ITD jointly. The FSD theory in...

متن کامل

The evolution of scaling laws in the sea ice floe size distribution

The sub-gridscale floe size and thickness distribution (FSTD) is an emerging climate variable, playing a leading-order role in the coupling between sea ice, the ocean, and the atmosphere. The FSTD, however, is difficult to measure given the vast range of horizontal scales of individual floes, leading to the common use of power-law scaling to describe it. The evolution of a coupled mixed-layer-F...

متن کامل

Sea Ice Thickness Data : the Many Vs

During May 1988 a 1230-m ice thickness profile was drilled across a floe in Fram Strait. The probability density function of this data set corresponds closely to extensive ice draft measurements from submarines and the thickness distribution of floes sampled randomly in the area. The observed similarity is attributed to the topography of the pack ice in Fram Strait where each floe is composed o...

متن کامل

Sea-Ice Floes Identification and Detection using Matlab

An unmanned aerial vehicle was used as a mobile sensor platform to collect sea-ice features at NyÅlesund in early May 2011, and several image processing algorithms have been applied to samples of sea-ice images to extract useful information about sea ice. The sea-ice statistics given by the floe size distribution, being an important parameter for climate and waveand structure-ice analysis, is c...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره   شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2015