Sea-ice growth, drift and deformation off Eastern Antarctica ...

• Main Author: Heil, P
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: University Of Tasmania 2023
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25959/23231288; https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Sea-ice_growth_drift_and_deformation_off_Eastern_Antarctica/23231288

Antarctic sea-ice thickness, concentration and extent all play a vital role in controlling the exchange processes between ocean and atmosphere in the polar regions. This study investigates how distributions of these characteristics are determined by sea-ice growth, drift and deformation. Drift and deformation of East Antarctic sea ice are investigated using in situ observations of sea-ice drift since the mid 1980s, and results from numerical models. From the drift data a climatology of the East Antarctic sea-ice velocity distribution is derived, and recurrent features in the drift pattern are identified. The average daily drift speed in the westward flow near the Antarctic coast is 0.22 m s -1(19.0 km d-1) with considerable spatial and temporal variability. In the eastward flow north of the Antarctic Divergence the average is 0.17 m s -1(14.7 km d-1). The average ice motion over wide parts of the overall East Antarctic sea-ice zone has a net northward component (0.04 m s -1or 3.5 km (1-1) transporting pack ...