Field experiments on wave-ice interaction in the Bering Sea and Greenland waters, 1979

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Authors: Wadhams, Peter, Squire, Vernon A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1980
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Arctic; Bering Sea; Greenland; Mesters Vig; East Greenland; Polar Record; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400003144; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400003144

Three field experiments in widely separated parts of the Arctic were carried out during 1979 to complete a study of the interaction between ocean waves and sea ice in the marginal ice zone. The aim of the project is to determine the distribution of floe sizes that is generated by a given incident wave field, and this requires measurements of wave decay, of the bending and body responses of floes, and of the strain necessary to cause fracture. The first series of experiments was carried out in 1978 (Wadhams, 1979) off Labrador and east Greenland. The 1979 series consisted of participation in a University of Washington cruise aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Surveyor to the Bering Sea; participation in the ground truth component of the Sursat remote sensing experiment off west Greenland; and finally a main summer experiment at Mesters Vig, east Greenland, in the same location as the 1978 main experiment. The Office of Naval Research (ONR), Washington DC, funded the study, and the two Greenland experiments were carried out in cooperation with the Electromagnetics Institute, Technical University of Denmark (TUD), Lyngby, with Danish government finance.