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How waves break up inshore fast ice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

Vernon A. Squire
Affiliation:
Scott Polar Research Institute, Lensfield Road Cambridge CB2 1ER

Abstract

Vertical accelerometers deployed on fast ice in Raudfjorden, Svalbard in early summer 1983 recorded characteristics of ice-coupled waves at the ice edge and during their passage under die ice sheet. Subsequent analysis indicated an unexpected increase in amplitude of waves of all periods some 20 to 30 m in from die ice edge. This is associated with a pair of heavily-damped waves, which become especially relevant at or beyond some critical angle and decay rapidly with distance from the edge; their coalescence may account for the increase in wave amplitude, and explain why ice tends to break out in strips parallel to the ice edge.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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