Model of sea ice breakup caused by waves

What is it about?

Ocean waves have been observed to fracture sea ice in the Arctic and Southern Oceans, a process which is hypothesised to partially control sea ice extent. We proposed a new mathematical model to simulate the repeated breakup of an ice field into many floes with different sizes under sustained wave forcing. Although field measurements suggest that the resulting floe size distribution should obey a power law, we show that waves alone are unlikely to be responsible for this scaling characteristic. We further identify specific ice and wave conditions that lead to enhanced sea ice breakup caused by constructive wave interference.

Featured Image