Sea ice growth rates from tide‐driven visible banding

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, periodic tide‐current‐driven banding in a sea‐ice core is demonstrated as a measure of the growth rate of first‐year sea ice at congelation‐ice depths. The study was performed on a core from the eastern McMurdo Sound, exploiting the well‐characterized tidal pattern at the site. It points the way to a technique for determining early‐season ice growth rates from late‐season cores, in areas where under ice currents are known to be tidally dominated and the ice is landfast, thus providing data for a time of year when thin ice prevents direct thickness (and therefore growth rate) measurements. The measured results were compared to the growth‐versus‐depth predicted by a thermodynamic model.