Wave dispersion and dissipation in landfast ice: Comparison of observations against models

Abstract

Observations of wave dissipation and dispersion in sea ice are a necessity for the development and validation of wave-ice interaction models. As the composition of the ice layer can be extremely complex, most models treat the ice layer as a continuum with effective, rather than independently measurable, properties. While this provides opportunities to fit the model to observations, it also obscures our understanding of the wave-ice interactive processes; in particular, it hinders our ability to identify under which environmental conditions these processes are of significance. Here, we aimed to reduce the number of free variables available by studying wave dissipation in landfast ice. That is..