Brief communication: Pancake ice floe size distribution during the winter expansion of the Antarctic marginal ice zone

Alberello, Alberto ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7957-4012, Onorato, Miguel, Bennetts, Luke, Vichi, Marcello, Eayrs, Clare, Machutchon, Keith and Toffoli, Alessandro (2019) Brief communication: Pancake ice floe size distribution during the winter expansion of the Antarctic marginal ice zone. Cryosphere, 13 (1). pp. 41-48. ISSN 1994-0416

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Abstract

The size distribution of pancake ice floes is calculated from images acquired during a voyage to the Antarctic marginal ice zone in the winter expansion season. Results show that 50&thinsp;% of the sea ice area is made up of floes with diameters of 2.3-4&thinsp;m. The floe size distribution shows two distinct slopes on either side of the 2.3-4&thinsp;m range, neither of which conforms to a power law. Following a relevant recent study, it is conjectured that the growth of pancakes from frazil forms the distribution of small floes (<span classCombining double low line"inline-formula">D&lt;2.3</span>&thinsp;m), and welding of pancakes forms the distribution of large floes (<span classCombining double low line"inline-formula">D&gt;4</span>&thinsp;m).

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding Information: Acknowledgements. The cruise was funded by the South African National Antarctic Programme through the National Research Foundation. This work was motivated by the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE) and partially funded by the ACE Foundation and Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Support from the Australian Antarctic Science Program (project 4434) is acknowledged. Miguel Onorato was supported by the “Departments of Excellence 2018–2022” grant awarded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) (L.232/2016). Clare Eayrs was supported under NYUAD Center for the Global Sea Level Change project G1204. The authors thank Lotfi Aouf at Meteo France for providing reanalysis data and the editor, Ted Maksym, for useful comments. Alberto Alberello and Alessandro Toffoli acknowledge support from the Air-Sea-Ice Lab Project. Miguel Onorato acknowledges Barbara GiuliNico for interesting discussions. Alberto Alberello, Alessandro Toffoli and Miguel Onorato thank Le Fascette for technical support during the cruise. Publisher Copyright: © Author(s) 2019.
Uncontrolled Keywords: water science and technology,earth-surface processes ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2312
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 13 Nov 2021 01:51
Last Modified: 23 Oct 2022 03:17
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/82082
DOI: 10.5194/tc-13-41-2019

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