Percolation in Sea Ice

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*** 9725038 Golden This project is an application of percolation theory, a well-developed mathematical concept based on the study of fluid and gaseous flow in porous media, to the study of sea ice where interstitial brine pockets affect the transport of salt, and heat, as well as nutrients and biomass. At low temperatures and low brine concentrations, brine pockets are separated, and sea ice is essentially impermeable, but above a critical brine volume fraction of about 5 percent, brine inclusions become connected on a macroscopic scale, allowing the circulation or percolation of sea water and the diffusion of sea water properties. The transition at the critical brine volume fraction plays an important role in air-sea-ice interactions, in the evolution of the sea ice microstructure, and in the life cycles of biological communities inhabiting the ice. Percolation theory, which was developed specifically to model flow in materials where connectedness becomes important, is a powerful technique for studying why the critical volume fraction is 5 percent, whether this is dependent on the specific ice type, what determines the spacing and geometry of brine tubes, how the transition affects the electromagnetic characteristics of sea ice, and other transition properties of sea ice. The application of the theory will also allow the development of a predictive capability for the response of sea ice in the electromagnetic spectrum, which is particularly important in the remote sensing of sea ice with satellite-based synthetic aperture radars. In more general terms, it is an intriguing cross-fertilization of ideas from mathematics to the geosciences. ***