{"id":7128,"date":"2024-10-30T08:46:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T07:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/?p=7128"},"modified":"2024-10-30T08:46:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T07:46:18","slug":"analysing-and-forecasting-the-impact-of-waves-on-sea-ice-in-a-changing-arctic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/features\/analysing-and-forecasting-the-impact-of-waves-on-sea-ice-in-a-changing-arctic\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysing and forecasting the impact of waves on sea ice in a changing Arctic"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Analysing and forecasting the impact of waves on sea ice in a changing Arctic<\/h1><\/div>[vc_column_text css=””]Sea ice in the Arctic has decreased significantly in recent decades. In fact, the Arctic Ocean is expected to be ice-free in summer by the end of this century. This drastic decline has opened up large areas of ocean that are more affected by wind, which in turn leads to greater wave activity. This creates an interaction with the sea ice. The question is to what extent this will affect sea ice extent <\/strong>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Forecasting future conditions is becoming increasingly important. Waves are generated in the open ocean, but can propagate into the marginal ice zone, which is the transition area between open ocean and solid ice. This zone is dominated by ice floes of various sizes, floating on the ocean surface. When the waves reach the marginal ice zone, large ice floes break down into smaller pieces. Smaller chunks melt faster than large ones, causing the sea ice to disappear more quickly. More open ocean area would mean more waves, and therefore more melting: This may create a positive feedback loop that could accelerate the disappearance of sea ice.<\/p>\n

Because waves have a major impact on the sea ice, it is important to include wave activity in sea ice forecasts. Researchers at the Nansen Center have special expertise in how waves propagate into the sea ice and the impact it has. Work is ongoing on how these processes can be included in sea-ice models to provide better and more accurate predictions.<\/p>\n

Through the \u201cYoung Research Talents\u201d project \u201cForWArd\u201d, researchers at the Nansen Center are working on predicting the impact on waves on the diminishing sea ice in the Artic. Project leader Guillaume Boutin and his colleagues are using the center\u2019s sea ice model, neXtSIM, in combination with a wave model to create a more realistic representation of the interaction between waves and ice. This enables a two-way interaction between waves and sea ice and is a unique approach that can provide more reliable predictions in the future. The project will analyse changes in the Arctic Ocean over the past 30 years and will predict what might happen over the coming 50 years.<\/p>\n

Through the ForWArd project, we hope to understand the extent to which waves affect sea ice in the Arctc, and how this impact will develop over time. This is important knowledge for predicting future changes in the Arctic. Reliable predictions are crucial for ship traffic and other activities in and near the marginal ice zone.<\/p>\n

N\u00f8kkelforskere<\/strong>: Guillaume Boutin<\/a><\/span>, Timothy Williams<\/a><\/span>, Richard Davy<\/a><\/span>, Heather Regan<\/span><\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1695033709348{padding-right: 0px !important;}”]

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The ForWArd project<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With the reduction of Arctic sea ice in recent decades, and expecting that the trend will continue in the future, the Arctic Ocean is becoming increasingly exposed to larger waves. The project\u00a0“Forecasting wave impact as Arctic sea ice declines”<\/em>\u00a0will assess the impact of waves on sea ice evolution in the increasingly rough Arctic Ocean. In ForWArd, researchers from the Nansen Center, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are collaborating. Read more here<\/span>.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>

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Groundbreaking work with waves and modelling<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Williams, T. D., Bennetts, L. G., Squire, V. A., Dumont, D., & Bertino, L. (2013a). Wave\u2013ice interactions in the marginal ice zone. Part 1: Theoretical foundations<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0Ocean Modelling<\/em>,\u00a071<\/em>, 81\u201391.<\/p>\n

Williams, T. D., Bennetts, L. G., Squire, V. A., Dumont, D., & Bertino, L. (2013b). Wave\u2013ice interactions in the marginal ice zone. Part 2: Numerical implementation and sensitivity studies along 1D transects of the ocean surface<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0Ocean Modelling<\/em>,\u00a071<\/em>, 92\u2013101.<\/p>\n

Williams, T. D., Rampal, P., & Bouillon, S. (2017). Wave-ice interactions in the neXtSIM sea-ice model<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0The Cryosphere Discussions<\/em>, 1- 28.<\/p>\n

Boutin, G., Williams, T., Rampal, P., Olason, E., & Lique, C. (2021). Wave\u2013sea-ice interactions in a brittle rheological framework<\/a><\/span>. The Cryosphere<\/em>, 15<\/em>(1), 431\u2013457.<\/p>\n

Boutin, G., Williams, T., Horvat, C., & Brodeau, L. (2022). Modelling the Arctic wave-affected marginal ice zone: A comparison with ICESat-2 observations<\/a><\/span>. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences<\/em>, 380<\/em>(2235), 20210262.<\/p><\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1693479579188{background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column_text css=””]Sea ice in the Arctic has decreased significantly in recent decades. In fact, the Arctic Ocean is expected to be ice-free in summer by the end of this century. This drastic decline has opened up large areas of ocean that are more affected by wind, which in turn leads to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 04:45:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7128"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7135,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7128\/revisions\/7135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nersc.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}