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A Small-Scale Model of Sea Ice Dynamics in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Using Fluid-Structure Interaction and the Reference Map Technique

Sea ice covers approximately 10% of the Earth's surface and modulates the sea-air heat and momentum exchange, therefore playing a major role in the global climate. The Antarctic marginal ice zone (MIZ) is the seasonally varying region between the open Southern Ocean and the Antarctic pack ice. It is...

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Main Author: Mahomed, Nadiya
Other Authors: Skatulla, Sebastian
Format: Thesis
Language:Eng
Published: Department of Civil Engineering 2025
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access_status_str Open Access
author Mahomed, Nadiya
author2 Skatulla, Sebastian
author_browse Mahomed, Nadiya
Skatulla, Sebastian
author_facet Skatulla, Sebastian
Mahomed, Nadiya
author_sort Mahomed, Nadiya
collection Thesis
description Sea ice covers approximately 10% of the Earth's surface and modulates the sea-air heat and momentum exchange, therefore playing a major role in the global climate. The Antarctic marginal ice zone (MIZ) is the seasonally varying region between the open Southern Ocean and the Antarctic pack ice. It is a highly dynamic area containing ice floes (highly mobile round pancake ice) surrounded by interstitial grease ice, where turbulent sea states prevent sea ice consolidation. The sea ice dynamics of this region influences the global climate and therefore research in this area is important to understand global climate and predict long-term change. Adequate research on the region has been challenging due to its complex nature. Understanding sea ice dynamics processes and influence on global climate is complex and many simplifications have been made when modelling and analysing the system on a large scale. Many climate models struggle to encapsulate the regional and temporal variability of Antarctica. Positive and negative trends found by the models are influenced by statistical analyses chosen, with different methods producing opposing trends in some instances. Subsequently, there is less consensus on the accuracy of large-scale models. Large knowledge gaps still exist with regards to the natural variability of Antarctic sea ice, thus limiting the ability to accurately forecast long-term changes. The accurate modelling of the interplay of temperature, waves, sea ice dynamics as well as wind and ocean currents is necessary, not only to predict sea ice dynamics and wave energy dissipation, but also to advance understanding of the governing mechanisms of sea ice growth and decay in the Antarctic MIZ in particular. Deeper into the Antarctic MIZ with up to 100% sea ice concentration, the wave-ice interaction is highly complex being characterized by floe collision, turbulent eddy generation at the ice-water interface due to skin drag, and floe-grease ice interaction. Large- and mesoscale sea ice dynamics models are mainly continuum models and do not address the detailed heterogeneous sea ice composition. Finer-scale models on a floe level commonly use either a molecular dynamics schemes based on Hertzian collision dynamics or the discrete-element method. These models generally describe solitary ice floes floating in water as a collection of interacting particles, which, however, simplifies the ice floe solid mechanics behaviour and the fluid-structure interaction significantly. In contrast to discrete particle models, this work proposed to study ice floe motion due to wave action. This is accomplished by developing and implementing a continuum approach for the solid and fluid constituents that accounts for the actual heterogeneous ice cover composition in terms of a geometrical layout of ice floes and interstitial grease ice. The model includes the respective material properties describing the solid-like deformation behaviour of ice floes and the fluid-like viscous behaviour of grease ice represented with their respective material laws. A novel fluid-structure interaction (FSI) method is employed, using the reference map technique (RMT), which accurately describes the interaction between the solids and fluid, and the response to wave forcing.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language Eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:52.713Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2025
publishDateRange 2025
publishDateSort 2025
publisher Department of Civil Engineering
publisherStr Department of Civil Engineering
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/41090 A Small-Scale Model of Sea Ice Dynamics in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Using Fluid-Structure Interaction and the Reference Map Technique Mahomed, Nadiya Skatulla, Sebastian Engineering Sea ice covers approximately 10% of the Earth's surface and modulates the sea-air heat and momentum exchange, therefore playing a major role in the global climate. The Antarctic marginal ice zone (MIZ) is the seasonally varying region between the open Southern Ocean and the Antarctic pack ice. It is a highly dynamic area containing ice floes (highly mobile round pancake ice) surrounded by interstitial grease ice, where turbulent sea states prevent sea ice consolidation. The sea ice dynamics of this region influences the global climate and therefore research in this area is important to understand global climate and predict long-term change. Adequate research on the region has been challenging due to its complex nature. Understanding sea ice dynamics processes and influence on global climate is complex and many simplifications have been made when modelling and analysing the system on a large scale. Many climate models struggle to encapsulate the regional and temporal variability of Antarctica. Positive and negative trends found by the models are influenced by statistical analyses chosen, with different methods producing opposing trends in some instances. Subsequently, there is less consensus on the accuracy of large-scale models. Large knowledge gaps still exist with regards to the natural variability of Antarctic sea ice, thus limiting the ability to accurately forecast long-term changes. The accurate modelling of the interplay of temperature, waves, sea ice dynamics as well as wind and ocean currents is necessary, not only to predict sea ice dynamics and wave energy dissipation, but also to advance understanding of the governing mechanisms of sea ice growth and decay in the Antarctic MIZ in particular. Deeper into the Antarctic MIZ with up to 100% sea ice concentration, the wave-ice interaction is highly complex being characterized by floe collision, turbulent eddy generation at the ice-water interface due to skin drag, and floe-grease ice interaction. Large- and mesoscale sea ice dynamics models are mainly continuum models and do not address the detailed heterogeneous sea ice composition. Finer-scale models on a floe level commonly use either a molecular dynamics schemes based on Hertzian collision dynamics or the discrete-element method. These models generally describe solitary ice floes floating in water as a collection of interacting particles, which, however, simplifies the ice floe solid mechanics behaviour and the fluid-structure interaction significantly. In contrast to discrete particle models, this work proposed to study ice floe motion due to wave action. This is accomplished by developing and implementing a continuum approach for the solid and fluid constituents that accounts for the actual heterogeneous ice cover composition in terms of a geometrical layout of ice floes and interstitial grease ice. The model includes the respective material properties describing the solid-like deformation behaviour of ice floes and the fluid-like viscous behaviour of grease ice represented with their respective material laws. A novel fluid-structure interaction (FSI) method is employed, using the reference map technique (RMT), which accurately describes the interaction between the solids and fluid, and the response to wave forcing. 2025-03-04T08:58:27Z 2025-03-04T08:58:27Z 2024 2025-03-04T08:54:57Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41090 Eng application/pdf Department of Civil Engineering Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Engineering
Mahomed, Nadiya
A Small-Scale Model of Sea Ice Dynamics in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Using Fluid-Structure Interaction and the Reference Map Technique
thesis_degree_str Master's
title A Small-Scale Model of Sea Ice Dynamics in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Using Fluid-Structure Interaction and the Reference Map Technique
title_full A Small-Scale Model of Sea Ice Dynamics in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Using Fluid-Structure Interaction and the Reference Map Technique
title_fullStr A Small-Scale Model of Sea Ice Dynamics in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Using Fluid-Structure Interaction and the Reference Map Technique
title_full_unstemmed A Small-Scale Model of Sea Ice Dynamics in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Using Fluid-Structure Interaction and the Reference Map Technique
title_short A Small-Scale Model of Sea Ice Dynamics in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Using Fluid-Structure Interaction and the Reference Map Technique
title_sort small scale model of sea ice dynamics in the antarctic marginal ice zone using fluid structure interaction and the reference map technique
topic Engineering
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41090
work_keys_str_mv AT mahomednadiya asmallscalemodelofseaicedynamicsintheantarcticmarginalicezoneusingfluidstructureinteractionandthereferencemaptechnique
AT mahomednadiya smallscalemodelofseaicedynamicsintheantarcticmarginalicezoneusingfluidstructureinteractionandthereferencemaptechnique