Estimating sea ice properties from wave observations in sea ice ...

• Main Authors: Voermans, J. J., Rabault, J., Marchenko, A., Nose, T., Waseda, T., Babanin, A. V.
• Format: Report
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2023
• Subjects: Geophysics physics.geo-ph; Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph; FOS Physical sciences; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2305.06490; https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.06490

The Marginal Ice Zone is a highly dynamic region where the atmosphere, ocean, waves and sea ice meet. Waves play a fundamental role in this coupled system, but progress in our understanding of wave-ice interactions is currently hindered by the lack of observations of sea ice properties in-situ. In this study we aim to estimate the ice thickness and effective elastic modulus of sea ice passively using observations of waves in ice. Specifically, we use three low-cost geophones deployed in triangular formation with sides of about 200 m on fast ice. The focus here is on three major wave events recorded, each consisting of initial high frequency vibrations with a frequency at around 10 Hz, followed by low frequency dispersive waves within a frequency range of 0.08-0.28 Hz. Based on the phase speed of the initial high frequency vibrations, we estimate the purely elastic effective modulus to be 4-4.5 GPa. By comparing the arrival times of the dispersive low frequency wave events to the dispersion relationship of ...