Abstract

In this talk we present a series of recent studies that investigate small-scale (e.g. within a climate model grid size ~ 100 km) thermodynamic and dynamics sea ice processes. This includes three key results: i) local variability of sea ice basal melt rate and the effects of solar radiative warming at the spatial scale of less than 100 km, ii) small-scale (less than 1 km) deformation event of a single ice floe detected from multiple buoys and satellite images, and iii) fragmentation processes of sea ice floes (i.e. changes in sea ice floe size seen from satellite SAR images) from spring to summer transition. Here we present how small-scale local variability in solar radiative warming affect sea ice bottom melt rate in a sub-grid scale, and how a single ice floe rotate and be deformed and how this small-scale deformation would be affected by external forcing (i.e. atmospheric wind stress). We also present how much sea ice floes had been already broken up in 2012 summer even before the 2012 August Great Storm came into the scene, and discuss the causes and implications of the 2012 ice floe fragmentation in comparison with the 2013 cases.

Collaborators: KOPRI (KOrea Polar Research Institute), Jeremy Wilkinson (BAS), Pedro Elosegui (CSIC), William Shaw (NPS), Tim Stanton (NPS), Jackie Richter-Menge (CRREL).