Preliminary evaluation of the effective viscoelastic parameters for the Arctic marginal ice zone under various sea states

Hayley H Shen1, William Rogers2, Jim Thomson3, Martin J Doble4, Alison Laura Kohout5, Benjamin Holt6, Vernon Arthur Squire7, Johannes e.m. Mosig7, Stephen F Ackley8 and Xin Zhao1, (1)Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, United States, (2)US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States, (3)Applied Physics Laboratory University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States, (4)Organization Not Listed, Washington, DC, United States, (5)NIWA National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Christchurch, New Zealand, (6)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (7)University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, (8)University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States
Abstract:
The amplitude of ocean waves reduces as they advance into and through sea ice. Two major mechanisms are associated with this apparent damping: scattering and viscous effects. The former calculates the net forward-going wave energy after directional energy redistribution. The latter is a “catch-all term” that may result from a number of processes which include: floe-floe interactions, overwash, drag loss, vortex shedding, and an eddy viscosity due to velocity differences between the ice and the ocean underneath. Several dispersion relations built on an effective field approach that models ice covers as a viscoelastic material have been proposed. We will use the wave data obtained in the 2015 Sea State and Boundary Layer Physics of the Emerging Arctic Ocean field campaign from direct buoy measurements and WAVEWATCH III® model calculations to evaluate the viscoelastic parameters obtained in these models. We will then compare the resulting parameters with the type of ice fields we encounter to find any possible relationships between them.
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