Waves in the Marginal Ice Zone: Insights from In Situ Observations and Modeling

Recent field campaigns provide rare measurements of ocean surface waves in partial sea ice cover. As the retreat of Arctic sea ice enables increased wave activity, wave-ice interactions will play an elevated role in the Arctic climate system. Current research is focused on understanding how waves and sea ice affect each other and including wave-ice physics in long-term climate simulations. Here, we interpret a collection of in situ observations from moorings and freely-drifting buoys spanning 2012-2019 in the Beaufort Sea that report wave activity beyond 100 kilometers inside the sea ice edge. Using satellite-derived ice concentrations, we group the in situ measurements based on distance from the ice edge and compare with a recent global climate model experiment that includes coupled interactions between waves and a sea ice floe size distribution. Comparisons of significant wave height, wave spectra, and nondimensional scaling for wind-generated waves illustrate how the wave field is altered by partial ice cover. These analyses highlight the impact of uncertainty in wave-ice physics on modeling the marginal ice zone, motivating further model development and future observational campaigns.