Experimental evidence for a universal threshold characterizing wave-induced sea ice break-up

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: Voermans, JJ, Rabault, J, Filchuk, K, Ryzhov, I, Heil, P, Marchenko, A, Collins, CO, Dabboor, M, Sutherland, G, Babanin, AV
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus GmbH 2020
• Subjects: sea ice; waves; sea ice break up; forecasting; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://eprints.utas.edu.au/40552/; https://eprints.utas.edu.au/40552/1/143580%20-%20Experimental%20evidence%20for%20a%20universal%20threshold%20characterizing%20wave-induced.pdf

Waves can drastically transform a sea ice cover by inducing break-up over vast distances in the course of a few hours. However, relatively few detailed studies have described this phenomenon in a quantitative manner, and the process of sea ice break-up by waves needs to be further parameterized and verified before it can be reliably included in forecasting models. In the present work, we discuss sea ice break-up parameterization and demonstrate the existence of an observational threshold separating breaking and non-breaking cases. This threshold is based on information from two recent field campaigns, supplemented with existing observations of sea ice break-up. The data used cover a wide range of scales, from laboratory-grown sea ice to polar field observations. Remarkably, we show that both field and laboratory observations tend to converge to a single quantitative threshold at which the wave-induced sea ice breakup takes place, which opens a promising avenue for robust parametrization in operational forecasting models.