Room: 5-314
Speaker Name:
Max Pierce
Affiliation:
PI: Dick Yue
Abstract:
Inspired by the well-known Yablonovitch limit which provides an upper bound on the light intensity enhancement in a solar cell, we derive a simple expression relating the ocean wave intensity in a floating ice sheet within the marginal ice zone (MIZ) to the wave intensity in the surrounding open water in the short wavelength limit. We find that the wave intensity in ice is reduced by the ratio of the wavenumber in ice to that in open water. It also suggests that the wave intensity in ice is uniform in the bulk of the ice sheet away from the ice edge. The expression is not a function of the ice sheet geometry, making it useful for the various ice floe shapes in the MIZ. We provide two independent derivations of the expression: one using Snell’s law and another invoking reciprocity. We verify the expression using direct computation of the ice deflection for various simple geometries. The numerical results demonstrate that the asymptotic limit is typically applicable when the characteristic length of the ice floe is greater than twice the wavelength in ice. This suggests the expression could be broadly applicable for a wide range of MIZ ice floes. This work has potential implications for determining ice breakup and parametrizing wave dissipation in the MIZ.