Ocean surface wave evolvement in the Arctic Basin

Abstract

Recent basin-scale changes to the compactness and thickness of Arctic sea ice foreshadow that encroaching swells and locally generated waves will exert more influence there in the future. Indeed, it is conceivable that waves may have already hastened the adjustments observed by breaking up ice floes. Yet waves advancing in sea ice attenuate due to being scattered from ice thickness variations and damped by ice inelasticity, turbulence and friction. While past research focuses on scattering by unnaturally perfect features in the ice, the model reported herein assimilates realistic basin-scale swathes of heterogeneous ice and parameterizes damping. By way of example, we show how an ocean wave train evolves during its passage in an 1670-km-long Arctic sea ice profile obtained from submarine. Copyright 2009 by the American Geophysical Union.