A Laboratory Investigation of Sea Ice Dynamics in a Stratified Waterbody Preliminary Results.

• Main Authors: Waters, Jennifer K., Bruno, Michael S., Herrington, Thomas O., Rankin, Kelly L.
• Other Authors: STEVENS INST OF TECH HOBOKEN NJ DAVIDSON LAB
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1993
• Subjects: Snow; Ice and Permafrost; *SEA ICE; *ARCTIC REGIONS; DENSITY; GLOBAL; EXPERIMENTAL DATA; LABORATORY TESTS; VALIDATION; MODELS; DYNAMICS; PARAMETERS; WATER; RESISTANCE; SITES; NUMERICAL ANALYSIS; MOTION; TRACKING; THESES; TOPOGRAPHY; PROFILES; NAVIGATION; MATHEMATICAL PREDICTION; MODEL TESTS; HEATING; GEOMETRY; ECOSYSTEMS; BEHAVIOR; NUMERICAL METHODS AND PROCEDURES; SALINITY; STRATIFICATION; INTERNAL WAVES; ANTARCTIC REGIONS; EAST(DIRECTION); OCEANOGRAPHY; MODEL BASINS; UNDERICE; Arctic; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Global warming; Ice; permafrost; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA302231; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA302231

The movement of Arctic ice floes is receiving greater interest today than ever before. While the tracking of ice floes is important to aiding in Arctic navigation, a knowledge of the dynamics of sea ice is also vital to understanding critical environmental issues such as global warming. Although for many years, ice observations were obtained primarily under proprietary government studies, several marginal ice zone experiments have recently been conducted which have provided accessible, enlightening data of ice floe tracks, ice compositions and floe geometries. In addition to large projects, such as the Marginal Ice Zone Experiment (MIZEX), the Coordinated Eastern Arctic Experiment (CEAREX), and the Antarctic Marine Ecosystem Research in the Ice Edge Zone (AMERIEZ), there have also been many smaller studies. The relatively new data from these studies has made it possible to more accurately model ice floe movement physically and numerically. The effect is actually two-fold, since the site data has provided critical information needed to prepare and perform relevant model tank tests. The availability of the tank test data, in addition to the site data, allows validation and further refinement of numerical prediction methods. One of the primary difficulties in modelling (both physically and numerically) ice floe movement is the numerous independent parameters which significantly affect floe behavior. In addition to geometric parameters, such as length, beam, draft, and under-ice topography, the salinity profile of the water body in which the ice floe moves has been shown to have a large effect on the ice-water resistance, and thus the floe's motion (e.g. Morison, et. al., 1987). The tests described in this thesis investigate the additional resistance that internal wave creation induces on an ice floe moving in a two-layer, density stratified water body.