Ocean waves and ice sheets

Abstract

A complete analytical study is presented of the reflection and transmission of surface gravity waves incident on ice-covered ocean. The ice cover is idealized as a plate of elastic material for which flexural motions are described by the Timoshenko–Mindlin equation. A suitable non-dimensionalization extracts parameters useful for the characterization of ocean-wave and ice-sheet interactions, and for scaled laboratory studies. The scattering problem is simplified using Fourier transforms and the Wiener–Hopf technique; the solution is eventually written down in terms of some easily evaluated quadratures. An important feature of this solution is that the physical conditions at the edge of the ice sheet are explicitly built into the analysis, and power-flow theorems provide verification of the results. Asymptotic results for large and small values of the non-dimensional parameters are extracted and approximations are given for general parameter values.