Coupled Hydrodynamic and Ice Floe Movement Model

摘要

A coupled ice-ocean model has been developed for use in the short term (order of days) prediction of the movement of the water and overlying ice floes of the shallow Arctic continental shelf. The authors interest in shallow waters has permitted the use of the depth-averaged momentum equations for the water circulation component of the coupled model, while at the same time introducing the complication of quantifying finite depth effects in the formulation. Since the offshore activities which the model is intended to assist (i.e., shipping and resource exploration) are confined to the open water season, the forces due to ice-ice interaction have been assumed negligible. The short time and spatial scales with which the authors are concerned have allowed the neglect of thermodynamic effects such as ice formation and melting, but necessitate much finer model resolution than that employed by large scale, seasonal models of the ice movement. The derivation of the coupled equations of motion has also led to the development of a simple methodology for the estimation of the drag coefficients at the air-ice and ice-water interfaces. They suggest the adoption of a multi-level circulation scheme as a future model refinement.