Experimental evidence for a universal threshold characterizing wave-induced sea ice break-up
Voermans, JJ (15724523), Rabault, J (15724526), Filchuk, K (15724529), Ryzhov, I (15724532), Petra Heil (14738878), Marchenko, A (15724535), Collins, CO (15724538), Dabboor, M (15724541), Sutherland, G (15724544), Babanin, AV (15708197)
Abstract
Waves can drastically transform a sea ice cover by inducing break-up over vast distances in the course of a few hours. However, relatively few detailed studies have described this phenomenon in a quantitative manner, and the process of sea ice break-up by waves needs to be further parameterized and verified before it can be reliably included in forecasting models. In the present work, we discuss sea ice break-up parameterization and demonstrate the existence of an observational threshold separating breaking and non-breaking cases. This threshold is based on information from two recent field campaigns, supplemented with existing observations of sea ice break-up. The data used cover a wide range of scales, from laboratory-grown sea ice to polar field observations. Remarkably, we show that both field and laboratory observations tend to converge to a single quantitative threshold at which the wave-induced sea ice breakup takes place, which opens a promising avenue for robust parametrization in operational forecasting models.