Sea Ice Drag Laws and Simple Boundary Layer Concepts, Including Application to Rapid Melting,

Abstract

Several proposed methods for treating the momentum flux between drifting sea ice and the underlying ocean are interpreted in terms of simple planetary-boundary-layer (PBL) turbulence theory. The classical two-layer approach, in which the solution for a thin surface layer is matched to an Ekman solution for the outer layer, is used to derive several forms of the drag law. These forms range from linear (where stress is proportional to relative speed), through quadratic (where stress is proportional to relative speed squared), to a Rossby-similarity law like that used to express frictional drag on geostrophic wind in the atmosphere. Only formulations which conform with Rossby-similarity scaling are consistent with free-drift data from the 1975 AIDJEX drift station experiment.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 1982
Accession Number
ADA113542

Entities

People

  • Miles G. Mcphee

Organizations

  • Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundary Layer
  • Buoyancy
  • Cold Regions
  • Engineering
  • Equations
  • Heat Energy
  • Heat Of Fusion
  • Military Research
  • Ocean Currents
  • Oceanography
  • Oceans
  • Physical Oceanography
  • Regions
  • Sea Ice
  • Sea Water
  • Turbulent Flow
  • Two Dimensional

Readers

  • Fluid Dynamics.
  • Polar and Arctic Studies