Modelling solar heating of sea ice

Abstract

Antarctica is an important part of the global environmental system. We aim to get a better understanding of the variations in sea ice temperature profiles due to solar heating. To achieve this we used Monte Carlo simulations to obtain a depth dependent function for the solar power absorbed in sea ice, P(z). Using P(z), we calculated a numerical solution to the full diffusion problem to describe temperature variations in sea ice. We observe travelling waves and temperature variations oi about 5°C. When we compare the results from the numerical solution to the data, the phases fitted the data well, but amplitudes from the model were significantly less at depth. We believe that part of the reason for this discrepancy is we are using absorption by pure ice and ignoring absorption by impurities. By including algae in the model, amplitudes at depth increased and improve the model. There is only limited data available on sea ice algae and more biological research needs to be done to obtain sea ice algal distributions and concentrations specific to McMurdo Sound.