It is well known that marginal ice zones are characterized by different forms of initial stages of ice such as, e.g., grease and fragmented ice which act as surface wave absorbers and thus affect microwave radar backscattering. As a result, mapping of boundaries between solid ice and open water areas using radar may become rather complicated. Another aspect of the problem of wind wave damping due initial stages of ice is that the areas of strong wave damping due to ice can be erroneously interpreted as surface pollutions in radar imagery. Studies of wave damping due to ice floes are still insufficient, and relations between the floe geometry and wave damping are poorly established. The motivation of this study is to improve our understanding of the process of wave damping due to ice floes for elaboration of physical models of wave damping. New wave tank experiments were carried out to investigate the damping of regular mechanically generated waves and of irregular wind waves due to drifting floe imitators (washing sponges) as well as for the case of stationary, non moving floes. Dependencies of the damping coefficient on wave frequencies for regular and wind waves for different floe sizes and different areas occupied by the floes were obtained. One of the most interesting results was that the damping coefficient indicated a local maximum when the floe size was about half the wave length. A physical interpretation of the results was given, based on the analysis of floe movement under the action of the orbital wave motion taking into account the floe added mass.
Remote sensing of wind waves propagating in the areas covered by ice at initial stages of its formation in the marginal ice zone using radar is an urging problem for mapping ice boundaries and their dynamics. Another aspect of the problem is to investigate possibilities of discrimination between the marginal ice zone and oil spills in radar imagery. This study is focused on modeling the damping of surface waves due to ice floes in laboratory and field experiment. Laboratory experiments were carried out is a container filled with pure water in order to exclude the effect of surfactant films on wave damping. The container was mounted on a vibration table, so that surface gravity-capillary waves (GCW) could be parametrically generated in the container when the amplitude of the vibrations exceeded some threshold level. The wave damping coefficient could be retrieved when measuring the threshold. The floes in experiment were modeled using thin plastic pieces of two different sizes, the relative square of the “floe” coverage of the water surface was controlled in experiment. The dependences of the damping coefficient at different relations between the surface wavelength and the floe dimensions as functions of the floe coverage area were obtained. It is obtained that the damping of gravity-capillary waves in the presence of floes comparable in size with GCW can be one to two orders of magnitude greater that the wave damping due to inextensible film. Preliminary field experiments have been conducted on the Gorky Water Reservoir using a research catamaran vessel of the Institute of Applied Physics. Plywood pieces with sizes several times smaller that the studied surface wavelengths were used as imitators of ice floes and were deployed in between the catamaran hulls. Surface waves propagating between the halls were generated mechanically by a vertically oscillating motor boat. The amplitude of attenuating surface waves due to the “plywood floes” was measured with wire gauges mounted at the bow and the stern of the catamaran. The damping distance due to ice floes obtained in the field experiment was estimated as about 10 wavelengths thus indicating that that wave suppression due to the floes was essentially stronger than the viscous wave damping for clean or contaminated water surface. Wave damping observed both in the laboratory and field experiments can be comparable with the wave damping due to crude oil/oil emulsion films, so the problem of discrimination between, e.g. grease ice and oil spills in radar imagery can be nontrivial.
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