Modeling Sea Ice Trajectories for Oil Spill Tracking.

• Main Authors: Pritchard,R S, Kolle,J J
• Other Authors: FLOW RESEARCH CO KENT WA
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1981
• Subjects: Snow; Ice and Permafrost; Statistics and Probability; *MATHEMATICAL MODELS; *TRACKING; *MATHEMATICAL PREDICTION; *TRAJECTORIES; *OIL SPILLS; *SEA ICE; COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION; OCEAN CURRENTS; OCEAN SURFACE; WIND; MOTION; DRIFT; WINTER; ERRORS; STANDARD DEVIATION; TILT; SUMMER; BEAUFORT SEA; ARCTIC OCEAN; CORIOLIS EFFECT; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Beaufort Sea; Ice; permafrost; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA126316; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA126316

A free-drift ice model and a complete sea ice dynamics model are presented and used for simulating trajectories of Arctic sea ice. The development of these models is part of a U.S. Coast Guard study to provide methods for predicting the movement of oil spills in Arctic and sub-Arctic coastal waters. Performance of both models is compared with sea ice motions observed during the AIDJEX main field experiment in the Beaufort Sea from Aqril 1975 to February 1976. The average error in the free-drive model during the summer is 0.010 m/s with a standard deviation of 0.030 m/s while the more complete model gives an error of 0.005 m/s with a standard deviation of 0.020 m/s. The complete ice dynamics model is almost as accurate during the winter (0.005 m/s mean error, 0.036 m/s standard deviation) but the free-drift model performance degrades substantially (0.030 m/s mean error and 0.107 m/s standard deviation). Therefore, both models are useful tools for simulating and predicting summertime ice motions on the Beaufort Sea but only the complete ice dynamics model can accurately describe wintertime ice behavior.