Author(s): T. D. Williams; V. A. Squire

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Abstract: We consider ocean wave spectra incident on an ice floe of a given length, with the purpose of determining how predisposed it is to fracture and the most likely sizes of the pieces produced by the breakage. The breaking probability of long floes is easier to estimate than the size of the pieces created by the process. Small floes break in half, but with a lower breaking probability than long floes -- thus, for them, the breaking probability is harder to ascertain than where the floes should actually break across their width. These matters have implications for ice breakage models for the marginal ice zone, especially in the context of ice/ocean models that seek to explain how the polar regions are changing under the action of climate change. Currently models only consider floe size in a very crude way when determining the likelihood of breakage occuring, so our results suggest that a parameterization of some sort should be investigated further.

DOI:

Year: 2014