The Spreading of a Buoyant Plume Beneath a Landfast Ice Cover

Abstract

AbstractIdealized numerical simulations using the Regional Ocean Modeling System demonstrate the effects of an immobile landfast ice cover that is frictionally coupled to an underice buoyant plume established by river discharge. The discharge rapidly increases and decreases over a 30-day period and has a maximum of 6000 m3 s−1. This study examined the response to a landfast ice cover of 26-km width and one that encompasses the entire shelf width. The model setting mimics spring conditions on the Alaskan Beaufort Sea (ABS) shelf. In comparison with the ice-free case subject to the same discharge scenario, underice plumes are broader and deeper, and the downwave freshwater flux is substantially decreased and delayed. Multiple anticyclonic bulges form in the ice-free case, but only a single, large bulge forms when ice is present. These differences are because of the frictional coupling between the ice and plume, which results in an Ekman-like underice boundary layer, a subsurface velocity maximum, and frictional shears that enhance vertical mixing and entrainment. For a partially ice-covered shelf, the plume spreads across the ice edge to form a swift, buoyant, ice-edge jet, whose width accords with the scale of Yankovsky and Chapman for a surface-advected plume. For a fully ice-covered shelf, the buoyant water spreads 60 km offshore over a 30-day period. For a steady discharge of 6000 m3 s−1 and a completely ice-covered shelf, the plume spreads offshore at a rate of ~1.5 km day−1 and extends ~95 km offshore after 60 days.