Wave and Pancake Ice Interactions

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This project combines theoretical modeling with laboratory experiments of the freezing of ice floes in a wave field. Wave and sea ice interaction is a little known area of research with however strong implications for both the large-scale ice dynamics, and local-scale physical and biological processes in the marginal ice zone. The proposed work consists of parallel investigations of computer-simulated data to determine the the relation between wave characteristics and the rate and duration of floe interactions on the one hand, and a series of wave tank experiments on the other hand. These experiments will evolve from a simple one-dimensional wave propagating into a field of simulated ice floes to examine floe movement and clustering, to two-dimensional experiments in a refrigerated wave tank to study the actual freezing process which is believed to involve the compaction of newly generated frazil ice and the welding together of individual so-called "pancakes" into successively larger ice floes. When the surface layers of the ocean are close to the freezing point of sea water, such a process operating on the 10 cm to 1 m scale, can extend the ice edge seaward extremely rapidly, with significant effects on antarctic meteorological and biological processes.