Illinois Mobile App Master Calendar

Abstract:
Sea ice forms a dynamic boundary between the ocean and atmosphere, where interactions across a wide range of scales shape its structure, motion, and evolution. A key region is the marginal ice zone, the outer edge of the ice pack, where ice is affected by wave swell and moves more freely with the wind. In this talk, I will present an overview of my work combining field observations and satellite data to better understand processes in this region.

I begin with ongoing work in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, where we are using in situ measurements to characterize sea ice physical structure, meltwater properties, and their spatial variability. I will focus on the observational approach and sampling strategy used to capture gradients across the ice cover and into the upper ocean.

I then turn to satellite-based studies of the marginal ice zone, where recent advances allow us to resolve sea ice at the floe scale. Using automated image analysis of satellite imagery, we quantify how the size of individual pieces of ice, or floes, evolve through the spring and summer, transitioning from large, consolidated ice to a fragmented cover. Building on this framework, I present joint observations of floe size and motion, which demonstrate how variability in drift and rotation emerges from interactions across scales and depends strongly on floe size and sea ice concentration. Finally, I show how floe kinematics can be used as a novel diagnostic of ocean dynamics: by treating ice floes as spatial filters, we infer upper-ocean enstrophy spectra from satellite-derived rotation rates, providing new constraints on turbulence in ice-covered regions. Together, these approaches demonstrate how both field observations and satellite data can provide new insight into the evolving structure and dynamics of sea ice.