Frazil Ice in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone

Abstract. As part of the 2019 Southern oCean seAsonal Experiment (SCALE) Winter Cruise of the South African icebreaker SA Agulhas II, first-year ice was sampled at the advancing outer edge of the Antarctic marginal ice zone along a 150 km Good Hope Line transect. Ice cores were extracted from four solitary pancake ice floes of 1.83–2.95 m diameter and 0.37–0.45 m thickness as well as a 12×4 m pancake ice floe of 0.31–0.76 m thickness that was part of a larger consolidated pack ice domain. The ice cores were subsequently analysed for temperature, salinity, texture, anisotropic elastic properties and compressive strength. All ice cores from both solitary pancake ice floes and consolidated pack ice exhibited predominantly granular textures. The vertical distributions of salinity, brine volume and mechanical properties were significantly different for the two ice types. High salinity values of 12.6±4.9 PSU were found at the topmost layer of the solitary pancake ice floes but not for the consolidated pack ice. The uniaxial compressive strengths for pancake ice and consolidated pack ice were determined as 2.3±0.5 and 4.1±0.9 MPa, respectively. Young's and shear moduli in the longitudinal core direction of solitary pancake ice were obtained as 3.7±2.0 and 1.3±0.7 GPa, respectively, and of consolidated pack ice as 6.4±1.6 and 2.3±0.6 GPa, respectively. Comparing Young's and shear moduli measured in longitudinal and transverse core directions, a clear directional dependency was found, in particular for the consolidated pack ice.

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An indicator of sea ice variability for the Antarctic marginal ice zone

Vichi

2022

The Cryosphere

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Abstract. Remote-sensing records over the last 40 years have revealed large year-to-year global and regional variability in Antarctic sea ice extent. Sea ice area and extent are useful climatic indicators of large-scale variability, but they do not allow the quantification of regions of distinct variability in sea ice concentration (SIC). This is particularly relevant in the marginal ice zone (MIZ), which is a transitional region between the open ocean and pack ice, where the exchanges between ocean, sea ice and atmosphere are more intense. The MIZ is circumpolar and broader in the Antarctic than in the Arctic. Its extent is inferred from satellite-derived SIC using the 15 %–80 % range, assumed to be indicative of open drift or partly closed sea ice conditions typical of the ice edge. This proxy has been proven effective in the Arctic, but it is deemed less reliable in the Southern Ocean, where sea ice type is unrelated to the concentration value, since wave penetration and free-drift conditions have been reported with 100 % cover. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative indicator for detecting MIZ conditions in Antarctic sea ice, which can be used to quantify variability at the climatological scale on the ice-covered Southern Ocean over the seasons, as well as to derive maps of probability of encountering a certain degree of variability in the expected monthly SIC value. The proposed indicator is based on statistical properties of the SIC; it has been tested on the available climate data records to derive maps of the MIZ distribution over the year and compared with the threshold-based MIZ definition. The results present a revised view of the circumpolar MIZ variability and seasonal cycle, with a rapid increase in the extent and saturation in winter, as opposed to the steady increase from summer to spring reported in the literature. It also reconciles the discordant MIZ extent estimates using the SIC threshold from different algorithms. This indicator complements the use of the MIZ extent and fraction, allowing the derivation of the climatological probability of exceeding a certain threshold of SIC variability, which can be used for planning observational networks and navigation routes, as well as for detecting changes in the variability when using climatological baselines for different periods.

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Frazil Ice in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone

Cited by 4 publications

References 38 publications

Small-scale computational fluid dynamics modelling of the wave induced ice floe-grease ice interaction in the Antarctic marginal ice zone

Small-scale computational fluid dynamics modelling of the wave induced ice floe-grease ice interaction in the Antarctic marginal ice zone

Physical and mechanical properties of winter first-year ice in the Antarctic marginal ice zone along the Good Hope Line

An indicator of sea ice variability for the Antarctic marginal ice zone

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