Ice Transport by Wind, Wave, and Currents

Abstract

Theoretical and experimental investigations of the transport of an isolated ice floe by wind, wave, and drift currents are made for the case in which the length of the floe is much longer than that of the winter waves. A simple numerical model is developed for predicting ice floe motion under the influence of unidirectional forces of wind, drift current, and short water waves. Although the model predictions of the transient motion provide only qualitative agreement with the experimental results, predictions of terminal drift speed of model ice floes are better, with a maximum error of about 15%. The time to reach 95% of the terminal speed is found to be insensitive to the wind speed. It was also found that the motion is most sensitive to the floe thickness. Both the terminal speed and