Abstract

Observations show that the sea ice pack is heterogeneous and heavily flawed. Deformation in response to wind and ocean stresses occurs discontinuously at existing areas of weakness or through the formation of new damaged zones. The orientation of the damaged zones is affected by existing weaknesses in the pack and the orientation of the applied stresses. The orientation of these zones, in turn, affect the direction and magnitude of internal ice stresses. I describe work motivated by the need to represent the dependence of sea ice stress on orientation of existing weaknesses in continuum climate sea ice models. I will describe some discrete element simulation results that help provide understanding, and the form of an anisotropic continuum sea ice model designed to be used in climate models. I will present simulations highlighting the operation and features of this anisotropic rheology in climate-type sea ice simulations.