01.09.2013 Views

The Davis Strait - DCE - Nationalt Center for Miljø og Energi

The Davis Strait - DCE - Nationalt Center for Miljø og Energi

The Davis Strait - DCE - Nationalt Center for Miljø og Energi

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Jan Feb May Apr<br />

May<br />

Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec<br />

Figure 3.3.1. <strong>The</strong> monthly sea ice cover in 2010, January - December. Red and magenta indicate the very dense ice (8-10/10),<br />

while yellow indicates somewhat looser ice. <strong>The</strong> loosest ice (1-3/10) is not recorded. Images based on Multichannel Microwave<br />

Radiometer (AMSR and SMMR) and processed by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) with support from the European<br />

Space Agency (ESA)'s PolarView project.<br />

<strong>The</strong> size of the common ice floes near the marginal ice zone in the <strong>Davis</strong><br />

<strong>Strait</strong> are less than 100 metres as a result of melting and breakup by waves.<br />

<strong>The</strong>se floes are often consolidated, <strong>for</strong>ming extensive areas without any<br />

open water. <strong>The</strong> dominant size of ice floes range from large floes of about 1<br />

km wide to vast floes larger than 10 km (Nazareth & Steensboe 1998).<br />

A sea ice drift pattern was studied north of the assessment area in April 2006<br />

by Mosbech et al. (2007 and references therein). In April 2006 two satellite<br />

transmitters were deployed on the sea ice, west of Nuussuaq Peninsula.<br />

<strong>The</strong>ir purpose was to track the movements of the drift ice. One was tracked<br />

until June, when it had moved approximately 500 km in total (entire length<br />

of track line), but overall it had only moved 66 km towards the southwest.<br />

<strong>The</strong> second transmitter was only tracked <strong>for</strong> a couple of days, when it<br />

moved 21 km towards the south (Mosbech et al. 2007). No specific sea ice<br />

drift patterns were observed during that study which suggest further experiments<br />

are required on this subject in the future.<br />

3.3.2 Icebergs<br />

Icebergs differ from sea ice in many ways:<br />

• <strong>The</strong>y originate from land<br />

• <strong>The</strong>y produce freshwater on melting<br />

• <strong>The</strong>y are deep-drafted, with appreciable heights above sea level<br />

• <strong>The</strong>y are always considered as an serious local hazard to navigation and<br />

offshore activity<br />

Jun<br />

57

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!