Author(s): Max C. Coon; Douglas C. Echert; Gerald S. Knoke
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: Arctic sea ice may prove to be an important indicator of global climate change. However, the inter-annual variability of ice extent and thickness clouds the issue. The focus of this work is to improve the accuracy of ice models so that effects due to climate change can be distinguished from inter-annual variability. This paper describes the development of a 2-D plastic anisotropic constitutive model of the ice cover which includes the creation of new leads in thick ice and the effects of leads and their orientation on the strength of the ice cover. The model requires an oriented thickness distribution to account for the growth and ridging of ice in refrozen leads. The shear and compressive strength of each lead are functions of the lead ice thickness distribution. Plans to verify the new model with ice stress field measurements, Arctic buoy ice motion data, ice vectors, and lead orientation data provided by synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery, are discussed.
Year: 1992