How waves break up inshore fast ice

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Squire, Vernon A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1984
• Subjects: Ice Sheet; Polar Record; Svalbard
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400005404; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400005404

Abstract Vertical accelerometers deployed on fast ice in Raudfjorden, Svalbard in early summer 1983 recorded characteristics of ice-coupled waves at the ice edge and during their passage under die ice sheet. Subsequent analysis indicated an unexpected increase in amplitude of waves of all periods some 20 to 30 m in from die ice edge. This is associated with a pair of heavily-damped waves, which become especially relevant at or beyond some critical angle and decay rapidly with distance from the edge; their coalescence may account for the increase in wave amplitude, and explain why ice tends to break out in strips parallel to the ice edge.