The three-dimensional light field within sea ice ridges

Sea ice pressure ridges have been recognized as important locations for both physical and biological processes. Thus, understanding the associated light-field is crucial, but their complex structure and internal geometry render them hard to study by field methods. To calculate the in- and under-ridg...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEarth and Space Science Open Archive ESSOAr
Main Authors Katlein, Christian, Langelier, Jean-Philippe, Ouellet, Alexandre, Lévesque-Desrosiers, Félix, Hisette, Quentin, Benjamin Allen Lange, Lambert-Girard, Simon, Babin, Marcel, Thibault, Simon
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington American Geophysical Union 16.04.2021
Subjects
Biological activity
Ice cover
Ice pressure
Ice thickness
Large-scale models
Light
Light levels
Light transmittance
Model testing
Monte Carlo simulation
Photosynthesis
Porosity
Ray tracing
Ridges
Scale models
Sea ice
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Summary:Sea ice pressure ridges have been recognized as important locations for both physical and biological processes. Thus, understanding the associated light-field is crucial, but their complex structure and internal geometry render them hard to study by field methods. To calculate the in- and under-ridge light field, we combined output from an ice mechanical model with a Monte-Carlo ray tracing simulation. This results in realistic light fields showing that light levels within the ridge itself are significantly higher than under the surrounding level ice. Light guided through ridge cavities and scattering in between ridge blocks also results in a more isotropic ridge-internal light field. While the true variability of light transmittance through a ridge can only be represented in ray tracing models, we show that simple parameterizations based on ice thickness and macro-porosity allow accurate estimation of mean light levels available for photosynthesis underneath ridges in field studies and large-scale models.
DOI:10.1002/essoar.10506296.2