scholarly journals A Study of Several Pressure Ridges and Ice Islands in the Canadian Beaufort Sea

1978 ◽  
Vol 20 (84) ◽  
pp. 519-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Hnatiuk ◽  
A. Kovacs ◽  
M. Mellor

Abstract The environmental conditions in the southern Beaufort Sea are described with special emphasis on pressure ridges and ice islands. Techniques for determining the geometric configurations and the physical and mechanical properties of sea-ice structures and ice islands are described. Profiles of pressure ridges were determined by surface surveys, drill-hole probes and side-looking sonar scanning. Multi-year pressure ridges with thicknesses up to 20 m and widths up to 120 m were examined in detail. The first-year ridge of 22 m thickness and 100 m width was studied. Results are given for several multi-year and the first-year ridges. Information obtained from dives under the ice is also given. Corresponding data are given for grounded ice islands with particular attention being given to contact between the ice and sea bed. A 20 m thick ice-island fragment grounded in 15 m of water was one of several investigated. Measurements of temperature, salinity, tensile strength, and compressive strength are given for ice taken from old pressure ridges and factors influencing the interpretation of test data were discussed. The data obtained in this study will be used in engineering design studies for offshore structures for drilling and production of hydrocarbons from the Beaufort Sea area. Exploratory drilling in shallow water has already been carried out and offshore drilling from drillships is scheduled to commence in the study area during the open water season of 1976.

1978 ◽  
Vol 20 (84) ◽  
pp. 519-532
Author(s):  
J. Hnatiuk ◽  
A. Kovacs ◽  
M. Mellor

AbstractThe environmental conditions in the southern Beaufort Sea are described with special emphasis on pressure ridges and ice islands. Techniques for determining the geometric configurations and the physical and mechanical properties of sea-ice structures and ice islands are described. Profiles of pressure ridges were determined by surface surveys, drill-hole probes and side-looking sonar scanning. Multi-year pressure ridges with thicknesses up to 20 m and widths up to 120 m were examined in detail. The first-year ridge of 22 m thickness and 100 m width was studied. Results are given for several multi-year and the first-year ridges. Information obtained from dives under the ice is also given. Corresponding data are given for grounded ice islands with particular attention being given to contact between the ice and sea bed. A 20 m thick ice-island fragment grounded in 15 m of water was one of several investigated. Measurements of temperature, salinity, tensile strength, and compressive strength are given for ice taken from old pressure ridges and factors influencing the interpretation of test data were discussed. The data obtained in this study will be used in engineering design studies for offshore structures for drilling and production of hydrocarbons from the Beaufort Sea area. Exploratory drilling in shallow water has already been carried out and offshore drilling from drillships is scheduled to commence in the study area during the open water season of 1976.


1977 ◽  
Vol 19 (81) ◽  
pp. 666-667
Author(s):  
J. Hnatiuk ◽  
A. Kovacs ◽  
M. Mellor

AbstractThe environment conditions in the southern Beaufort Sea are described with special emphasis on pressure ridges and ice islands. Techniques for determining the geometric configurations and the physical and mechanical properties of sea-ice structures and ice islands are described. Profiles of pressure ridges were determined by surface surveys, drill-hole probes and side-looking sonar scanning. Multi-year pressure ridges with thicknesses up to 18 m and widths up to 110 m were examined in detail. The first-year ridge of 22 m thickness and 100 m width was studied. Results are given for several multi-year ridges and the first-year ridge. Information obtained from dives under the ice is also given. Corresponding data are given for grounded ice islands with particular attention being given to contact between the ice and sea bed. A 19 m thick ice-island fragment grounded in 13 m of water was one of several investigated. Measurements of temperature, salinity, tensile strength and compressive strength are given for ice taken from old pressure ridges and factors influencing the interpretation of test data are discussed. The data obtained in this study will be used in engineering design studies for off-shore structures for drilling and production of hydrocarbons from the Beaufort Sea area. Exploratory drilling in shallow water has already been carried out and off-shore drilling from drill ships is scheduled to commence in the study area during the open-water season of 1976.This paper will be published in full in a future issue of Journal of Glaciology.


1977 ◽  
Vol 19 (81) ◽  
pp. 666-667
Author(s):  
J. Hnatiuk ◽  
A. Kovacs ◽  
M. Mellor

Abstract The environment conditions in the southern Beaufort Sea are described with special emphasis on pressure ridges and ice islands. Techniques for determining the geometric configurations and the physical and mechanical properties of sea-ice structures and ice islands are described. Profiles of pressure ridges were determined by surface surveys, drill-hole probes and side-looking sonar scanning. Multi-year pressure ridges with thicknesses up to 18 m and widths up to 110 m were examined in detail. The first-year ridge of 22 m thickness and 100 m width was studied. Results are given for several multi-year ridges and the first-year ridge. Information obtained from dives under the ice is also given. Corresponding data are given for grounded ice islands with particular attention being given to contact between the ice and sea bed. A 19 m thick ice-island fragment grounded in 13 m of water was one of several investigated. Measurements of temperature, salinity, tensile strength and compressive strength are given for ice taken from old pressure ridges and factors influencing the interpretation of test data are discussed. The data obtained in this study will be used in engineering design studies for off-shore structures for drilling and production of hydrocarbons from the Beaufort Sea area. Exploratory drilling in shallow water has already been carried out and off-shore drilling from drill ships is scheduled to commence in the study area during the open-water season of 1976. This paper will be published in full in a future issue of Journal of Glaciology.


Polar Record ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 24 (148) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Stirling

AbstractWildlife observations recorded at several offshore hydrocarbon exploration sites in the Beaufort Sea were examined to evaluate the hypothesis that polar bears Ursus maritimus are attracted to drill rigs, will be judged to represent a threat to humans there, and consequently will have to be deterred or destroyed. When polar bears came south with the pack ice in the autumn, they approached drillships or artificial islands, probably because they became curious or were attracted by unfamiliar smells. However, these bears did not usually remain in the area.In late winter, when most of the natural leads are frozen, the movement of compacted annual ice from east to west past permanent offshore drill rigs creates open cracks on the downstream side. Because of the open water there, seals are more abundant, more accessible, or both, and bears are attracted because of better hunting conditions. In mid to late winter some bears may remain in the area for several days or longer while hunting seals. This positive reinforcement may lead these bears to be attracted to other offshore rigs in the future. In the last five years four bears attracted to offshore rigs have been shot; thus the hypothesis was found to be valid. To date, the population is not under threat, but this could change if the number of offshore drill rigs operating through the winter were to increase.


1966 ◽  
Vol 181 (1) ◽  
pp. 848-875 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. S. Avery

The origins of offshore drilling work and the development of structures used at sea are traced. Comparison of the various types illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of each. Tables show the numbers in operation, being built, and the apparent liability of each type to damage. Typical bore-hole structures are illustrated, the need for undersea well-heads explained and their development into a sea-bed completion is discussed. Much more research is necessary before this can be considered a practical proposition. The design of drilling barge equipment is compared with typical land rigs and the development of drilling equipment, including the sophisticated electric drive and turbo-drill, discussed. Rigs in various types of barge are compared. Fire precautions and other safety equipment are described. The problems associated with control by the driller lead to complications of motive power layout. The lecture describes in some detail the design of the semi-submersible drilling barge Sea Quest, illustrates the weight problems and their effect on floating stability and indicates the need for management decisions on the degree of resistance to damage. This is measured by the variable deck load of drilling equipment that can be held on board and the degree of weather deterioration that can be tolerated before disengaging the drill from the hole. The need for, and extent of, diving is discussed, with some comparison between diving vehicles. Weather too is an essential factor of work in the North Sea and both pre-surveys and day-to-day reporting are described.


1990 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Brandt ◽  
Ian Allison ◽  
Stephen Warren

Reflection of solar radiation was studied in the seasonal sea-ice zone off East Antarctica on a cruise of the Australian Antarctic Expedition, October-December 1988. Spectral and total albedos were measured for grease ice, nilas, young grey ice, grey-white ice, snow-covered ice, and open water. Spectral measurements covered the region 400–1000 nm wavelength. For ice too thin to support our weight, the radiometers were mounted at the end of a 1.5 m rod extended out the door of a helicopter or from a basket hung from the ship's crane, using a positioning and leveling rack. Corrections had to be applied to the downward radiation flux because the helicopter or the crane was in the field of view of the cosine-collector. The fractional coverage of each of the ice types (and open water) was estimated hourly for the region near the ship, as well as the thickness of each ice type, and the snow thickness. Observations were carried out continuously during the four weeks the ship was in the ice, supplemented by occasional helicopter surveys covering larger areas. These observations, together with the radiation measurements, make possible the computation of area-average albedo for the East Antarctic sea-ice zone in spring.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yifan Ding ◽  
Xiao Cheng ◽  
Jiping Liu ◽  
Fengming Hui ◽  
Zhenzhan Wang

Abstract. The accurate knowledge of variations of melt ponds is important for understanding Arctic energy budget due to its albedo-transmittance-melt feedback. In this study, we develop and validate a new method for retrieving melt pond fraction (MPF) from the MODIS surface reflectance. We construct an ensemble-based deep neural network and use in-situ observations of MPF from multi-sources to train the network. The results show that our derived MPF is in good agreement with the observations, and relatively outperforms the MPF retrieved by University of Hamburg. Built on this, we create a new MPF data from 2000 to 2017 (the longest data in our knowledge), and analyze the spatial and temporal variability of MPF. It is found that the MPF has significant increasing trends from late July to early September, which is largely contributed by the MPF over the first-year sea ice. The analysis based on our MPF during 2000–2017 confirms that the integrated MPF to late June does promise to improve the prediction skill of seasonal Arctic sea ice minimum. However, our MPF data shows concentrated significant correlations first appear in a band, extending from the eastern Beaufort Sea, through the central Arctic, to the northern East Siberian and Laptev Seas in early-mid June, and then shifts towards large areas of the Beaufort Sea, Canadian Arctic, the northern Greenland Sea and the central Arctic basin.


Author(s):  
Syed Danish Hasan ◽  
Nazrul Islam ◽  
Khalid Moin

The response of offshore structures under seismic excitation in deep water conditions is an extremely complex phenomenon. Under such harsh environmental conditions, special offshore structures called articulated structures are feasible owing to reduced structural weight. Whereas, conventional offshore structure requires huge physical dimensions to meet the desired strength and stability criteria, therefore, are uneconomical. Articulated offshore towers are among the compliant offshore structures. These structures consist of a ballast chamber near the bottom hinge and a buoyancy chamber just below the mean sea level, imparting controlled movement against the environmental loads (wave, currents, and wind/earthquake). The present study deals with the seismic compliance of a double-hinged articulated offshore tower to three real earthquakes by solving the governing equations of motion in time domain using Newmark’s-β technique. For this purpose Elcentro 1940, Taft 1952 and Northridge 1994 earthquake time histories are considered. The tower is modeled as an upright flexible pendulum supported to the sea-bed by a mass-less rotational spring of zero stiffness while the top of it rigidly supports a deck in the air (a concentrated mass above water level). The computation of seismic and hydrodynamic loads are performed by dividing the tower into finite elements with masses lumped at the nodes. The earthquake response is carried out by random vibration analysis, in which, seismic excitations are assumed to be a broadband stationary process. Effects of horizontal ground motions are considered in the present study. Monte Carlo simulation technique is used to model long crested random wave forces. Effect of sea-bed shaking on hydrodynamic modeling is considered. The dynamic equation of motion is formulated using Lagrangian approach, which is based on energy principle. Nonlinearities due to variable submergence and buoyancy, added mass associated with the geometrical non-linearities of the system are considered. The results are expressed in the form of time-histories and PSDFs of deck displacement, rotational angle, base and hinge shear, and the bending moment. The outcome of the response establishes that seismic sea environment is an important design consideration for successful performance of hinges, particularly, if these structures are situated in seismically active zones of the world’s ocean.


2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 479-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Weiss ◽  
J. C. King ◽  
T. A. Lachlan-Cope ◽  
R. S. Ladkin

Abstract. This study investigates the surface albedo of the sea ice areas adjacent to the Antarctic Peninsula during the austral summer. Aircraft measurements of the surface albedo, which were conducted in the sea ice areas of the Weddell and Bellingshausen Seas show significant differences between these two regions. The averaged surface albedo varied between 0.13 and 0.81. The ice cover of the Bellingshausen Sea consisted mainly of first year ice and the sea surface showed an averaged sea ice albedo of αi = 0.64 ± 0.2 (± standard deviation). The mean sea ice albedo of the pack ice area in the western Weddell Sea was αi = 0.75 ± 0.05. In the southern Weddell Sea, where new, young sea ice prevailed, a mean albedo value of αi = 0.38 ± 0.08 was observed. Relatively warm open water and thin, newly formed ice had the lowest albedo values, whereas relatively cold and snow covered pack ice had the highest albedo values. All sea ice areas consisted of a mixture of a large range of different sea ice types. An investigation of commonly used parameterizations of albedo as a function of surface temperature in the Weddell and Bellingshausen Sea ice areas showed that the albedo parameterizations do not work well for areas with new, young ice.


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