Scale properties of sea ice deformation and fracturing

Jérôme Weiss; David Marsan

doi:10.1016/j.crhy.2004.09.005

Scale properties of sea ice deformation and fracturing

Presented by: Guy Laval

Jérôme Weiss ¹ ; David Marsan ²

¹ Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement, UMR CNRS 5183, 54, rue Molière, BP 96, 38402 St Martin d'Hères cedex, France
² Laboratoire de géophysique interne et tectonophysique, UMR C5559, université de Savoie, campus scientifique, 73376 Le Bourget du Lac cedex, France

Comptes Rendus. Physique, Ice: from dislocations to icy satellites, Volume 5 (2004) no. 7, pp. 735-751.

Abstract
Résumé

The sea ice cover, which insulates the ocean from the atmosphere, plays a fundamental role in the Earth's climate system. This cover deforms and fractures under the action of winds, ocean currents and thermal stresses. Along with thermodynamics, this deformation and fracturing largely controls the amount of open water within the ice cover and the distribution of ice thickness, two parameters of high climatic importance, especially during fall and winter (no melting). Here we present a scaling analysis of sea ice deformation and fracturing that allows us to characterize the heterogeneity of fracture patterns and of deformation fields, as well as the intermittency of stress records. We discuss the consequences of these scaling properties, particularly for sea ice modelling in global climate models. We show how multifractal scaling laws can be extrapolated to small scales to learn about the nature of the mechanisms that accommodate the deformation. We stress that these scaling properties preclude the use of homogenisation techniques (i.e. the use of mean values) to link different scales, and we discuss how these detailed observations should be used to constrain sea ice dynamics modelling.

La banquise, en isolant l'océan de l'atmosphère, joue un rôle fondamental dans le climat terrestre. Elle se déforme et se fracture sous l'action des vents, des courants océaniques et des contraintes thermiques. En sus des processus thermodynamiques, cette fracturation contrôle en grande partie la proportion d'eau libre et la distribution des épaisseurs de glace, deux paramètres très importants du point de vue climatique, particulièrement pendant l'automne et l'hiver en l'absence de fonte. Nous présentons ici une analyse des propriétés d'échelle de la banquise qui permet de caractériser l'hétérogénéité des réseaux de fracture et des champs de déformation, ainsi que l'intermittence des fluctuations de contrainte. Nous discutons les conséquences de ces propriétés d'échelle, en particulier pour la modélisation de la banquise dans les modèles climatiques. Nous montrons comment les lois d'échelle multifractales peuvent être extrapolées vers les petites échelles pour déterminer la nature des mécanismes physiques accommodant la déformation de la banquise. Nous soulignons le fait que ces lois d'échelle invalident l'utilisation de techniques d'homogénéisation pour modéliser les changements d'échelle, et nous discutons comment ces observations peuvent être utilisées pour contraindre des modèles de dynamique de la banquise.

Published online: 2004-09-01

DOI: 10.1016/j.crhy.2004.09.005

Keywords: Sea ice cover, Deformation, Fracture, Intermittency, Multifractal, Climate
Mots-clés : Banquise, Déformation, Fracture, Intermittence, Multifractal, Climat

Author's affiliations:

Jérôme Weiss ¹; David Marsan ²

¹ Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement, UMR CNRS 5183, 54, rue Molière, BP 96, 38402 St Martin d'Hères cedex, France
² Laboratoire de géophysique interne et tectonophysique, UMR C5559, université de Savoie, campus scientifique, 73376 Le Bourget du Lac cedex, France

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Jérôme Weiss; David Marsan. Scale properties of sea ice deformation and fracturing. Comptes Rendus. Physique, Ice: from dislocations to icy satellites, Volume 5 (2004) no. 7, pp. 735-751. doi : 10.1016/j.crhy.2004.09.005. https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/physique/articles/10.1016/j.crhy.2004.09.005/

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