An acoustical study of the properties and behaviour of sea ice ...

• Main Author: Xie, Yunbo
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2011
• Subjects: Arctic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0053256; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0053256

The primary goal of this thesis is to utilize acoustical radiation from the Arctic ice cover to infer the response of sea ice to environmental forcing, and to sense remotely the mechanical properties of the ice. The work makes use of two experiments in the Canadian arctic undertaken by the Ocean Acoustics Group of the Institute of Ocean Sciences, which resulted in an extensive body of acoustical and related environmental data. Cracking sounds originating from both first and multi-year ice fracturing processes are analyzed. Data used in this thesis also include sound made by artificial sources. The survey of in situ ice conditions by air photography and synthetic radar imaging, and a crack distribution map based on observations made with a 3-D hydrophone array, reveal, for the first time, a close correlation between thermal cracking events and ice type. It is shown that most of the thermal cracks occur in irregular multi-year ice where there are exposed, snow-free surfaces. The study shows that acoustical ...