Author(s): Chuankang Pei; Jiaqi Yang; Yuntong She; Mark Loewen
Linked Author(s): Mark R. Loewen, Yuntong She
Keywords: River Ice; Ice Formation; Growth and Dynamics
Abstract: Turbulent water becomes supercooled when exposed to cold air and suspended frazil ice particles form in the water column. Adhesive frazil ice particles can sinter together, forming frazil flocs. As a fundamental source for ice production in the water column, frazil ice particles and flocs play a key role in complex river ice processes. Properties of frazil flocs have been measured in some laboratory studies, but no detailed field measurements have been reported. In this study, a submersible camera system was deployed on the North Saskatchewan River to capture time-series images of frazil particles and flocs. Water temperature, water depth loggers and a weather station were also deployed. Images were captured during two supercooling events and processed to compute floc properties. A lognormal distribution was found to be a good fit to the floc size distribution from one deployment but not for the other. The mean size of frazil ice flocs measured during two deployments was 3.93 mm and 1.65 mm, respectively. Different trends of floc properties evolution were observed during the two deployments. These may be due to varying hydraulic conditions or differences in the air-water heat flux that drives supercooling.
Year: 2022