University of Adelaide

Following several decades of development by applied mathematicians, models of ocean wave interactions with sea ice floes are now in high demand due to the rapid recent changes in the world’s sea ice cover. From a mathematical perspective, the models are of interest due to the thinness of the floes, leading to elastic responses of the floes to waves, and the vast number of floes that waves encounter. Existing models are typically based on linear theories, but the thinness of the floes leads to the unique and highly nonlinear phenomenon of overwash, where waves run over the floes, in doing so dissipating wave energy and impacting the floes thermodynamically. I will give an overview of methods developed for the wave-floe problem, and present a new, bespoke overwash model, along with supporting laboratory experiments and numerical CFD simulations.