Statistics of thickness and strength of first-year ice along the Northern Sea Route

Abstract

In this paper, statistics of ice thickness and ice strength of first-year sea ice along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) is studied to provide useful information for the design and operation of Arctic ships. Specifically, ice thickness, ice strength and other physical parameters of the sea ice are estimated. Four representative sites are selected to study the ice environment and ice strength in different sea areas along the NSR during the ice growth season. Besides that, a good knowledge of the co-variation relationships between these ice parameters in a particular region would promote the estimation of ice loads acting on structures located in this region. In this work, a novel probabilistic model is introduced to describe the probability distribution of the ice flexural strength. The co-variation relationships between ice thickness and ice strength are quantified in terms of correlation coefficients. The influence of air temperature on ice properties is also investigated and discussed.