Author(s): A. L. Kohout; D. R. Plew; M. H. Meylan
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Abstract: We present a model for wave attenuation in the Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ) based on a twodimensional mult iple floating elastic plate solut ion in the frequency domain. The only physical parameters which enter the model are skin and form drag under the ice and floe length, mass and elast ic st iffness. The model neglects all non-linear effects as well as floe collisions or ice creep, and is therefore most applicable to floes which are large relat ive to thickness. The so lution for a given arrangement of floes is fully coherent, and the results are therefore dependent on the exact geometry. We firstly show that this dependence can be removed by averaging over a distribut ion of floe lengths (we choose the Rayleigh distr ibut ion). We then show that after this averaging, the attenuation coefficient is a function of floe number and independent of floe length, provided the floe lengths are suffic iently large. The model predicts an exponent ial decay o f energy, just as is shown experimentally. This enables us to provide explicit values for the attenuation coefficient, as a function of the average floe thickness and wave per iod. We compare our theoretical predictions of the wave attenuation with measured data and other scattering models.
Year: 2010