On the Multiscale Dynamics of the Arctic Sea-Ice Pack
Abstract
The Arctic sea-ice pack drifts under winds and ocean currents, but its motion is more intermittent than the turbulent fluids forcing it, because ice is a brittle solid deforming by fracturing. How mechanical energy is distributed, transferred across scales, and dissipated within sea ice remains poorly understood, yet it controls how the ice mediates momentum exchange between atmosphere and ocean -- a key, evolving component of the energy budget in polar regions. We characterize the multiscale dynamics of the winter Arctic pack (1979--2006) using Lagrangian and Eulerian statistics, borrowed from turbulence, applied to International Arctic Buoy Programme trajectories. Fluctuating velocities de-correlate within ∼1.5\,days and are non-Gaussian. The Eulerian energy spectrum scales as k−2, differing from the oceanic spectrum, and the second-order structure function grows linearly with separation between ∼50 and 1000\,km. However, the crossed acceleration-velocity structure function shows no evidence of a kinetic energy cascade. We therefore propose a phenomenological model where energy is injected at multiple scales through wind and ocean stresses, transferred across scales by elastic stress concentration along a fractal network of fractures, and dissipated along these by Coulombic friction -- at most ∼15unitpercent of the wind energy input. The model yields a Gutenberg-Richter-type law for sea ice with a b-value of 1.1, comparable to the Earth's crust. This study shows that the concept of ``solid turbulence' mischaracterizes sea-ice dynamics, establishes a novel fracture-based framework compatible with its observed multiscale properties, and provides new energy-budget constraints for developing and evaluating sea-ice and coupled climate models.
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BibTeX
@misc{caneill2026multiscale,
title = {{On the Multiscale Dynamics of the Arctic Sea-Ice Pack}},
author = {Romain Caneill and Pierre Rampal and Mickaël Bourgoin and David Marsan and Jérôme Weiss},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.22541/essoar.15005340/v2},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05771928v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - On the Multiscale Dynamics of the Arctic Sea-Ice Pack
AU - Romain Caneill
AU - Pierre Rampal
AU - Mickaël Bourgoin
AU - David Marsan
AU - Jérôme Weiss
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/08
PB - HAL
DO - 10.22541/essoar.15005340/v2
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05771928v1
AB - The Arctic sea-ice pack drifts under winds and ocean currents, but its motion is more intermittent than the turbulent fluids forcing it, because ice is a brittle solid deforming by fracturing. How mechanical energy is distributed, transferred across scales, and dissipated within sea ice remains poorly understood, yet it controls how the ice mediates momentum exchange between atmosphere and ocean -- a key, evolving component of the energy budget in polar regions. We characterize the multiscale dynamics of the winter Arctic pack (1979--2006) using Lagrangian and Eulerian statistics, borrowed from turbulence, applied to International Arctic Buoy Programme trajectories. Fluctuating velocities de-correlate within ∼1.5\,days and are non-Gaussian. The Eulerian energy spectrum scales as k^−2, differing from the oceanic spectrum, and the second-order structure function grows linearly with separation between ∼50 and 1000\,km. However, the crossed acceleration-velocity structure function shows no evidence of a kinetic energy cascade. We therefore propose a phenomenological model where energy is injected at multiple scales through wind and ocean stresses, transferred across scales by elastic stress concentration along a fractal network of fractures, and dissipated along these by Coulombic friction -- at most ∼15unitpercent of the wind energy input. The model yields a Gutenberg-Richter-type law for sea ice with a b-value of 1.1, comparable to the Earth's crust. This study shows that the concept of ``solid turbulence' mischaracterizes sea-ice dynamics, establishes a novel fracture-based framework compatible with its observed multiscale properties, and provides new energy-budget constraints for developing and evaluating sea-ice and coupled climate models.
ER -