Medium-scale sea ice deformation during autumn-to-winter transition in the Arctic Ocean

Abstract:

Medium-scale deformation events were observed from ten closely placed drifters (~5-20 km) in the Arctic Ocean between August 2015 and March 2016. The data show six dominant deformation events, including lead opening and ridging, in late autumn to early onset of winter. Our preliminary results show that shear is a dominant form of deformation during these events, i.e., ~100-200 times higher than divergence. We also see an increase in the strain rate at smaller scales, which might correspond to crossing the ductile-to-brittle transition, at the order of 10^-5 s^-1. These deformation events were analysed with Sentinel-1 imagery to elucidate the nature and causes of the deformation events.