Observations and analyses of an intense waves-in-ice event in the interior of the Sea of Okhotsk ice

• Main Author: John R. Marko
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Antarctic; Christensen; Okhotsk; Antarc*; ice pack; Sakhalin
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.8.2953; http://www.aslenv.com/reports/JGR2003.pdf

Ice draft, ice velocity, ice concentration and current profile data gathered at an array of 8 continental shelf monitoring sites east of Sakhalin Island were analyzed in conjunction with regional meteorological data to document and explain intense wave occurrences several hundred km inside the Sea of Okhotsk ice pack. The studied event was associated with the March 19-21, 1998 passage of an intense cyclone which produced waves with amplitudes in excess of 1 m at the most offshore monitoring location. The relatively monochromatic character of the waves allowed extraction of wave intensity time series from ice draft time series data. Spatial and temporal variations in these data were used to establish directions and speeds of wave energy propagation for comparisons with an earlier interpretation (Liu and Mollo-Christensen, 1988) of an Antarctic intense wavesin -ice event. It was concluded that, although both events are compatible with a two stage process in which initially slowly advancing wave activity increases subsequent ice cover wave transmissivity, the first stage of the Sea of Okhotsk event was not explicable in terms of the static stress-induced changes in the waves-in-ice dispersion relationship proposed by Liu and Mollo-Christensen. An alternative explanation is offered which eschews the linkage between wave group velocities and the observed slow rates of wave energy propagation and attributes the subsequent transition to more normal wave propagation behaviour to ice pack divergence. 1.