Model study of ocean wave propagation through broken sea ice covers with variable ice concentration

Abstract

A theoretical model is used to study the propagation of water waves into and through the marginal ice zone. The marginal ice zone is modelled as a region composed of thin floating elastic plates separated by open water gaps, with randomly chosen lengths. The impact of the marginal ice zone on incoming waves is determined using a reconstruction of the dominant wavelength and attenuation rate, and a transferred amplitude (measuring the change in amplitude at the ice edge), and these quantities are studied for different ice concentrations (the areal fraction of ice cover to open water). For all concentrations, the model is shown to predict a deterministic limit for ice covers composed of floes ..