The mechanical energy balance of sea ice provides information about ice dynamic behavior, driving forces and the constitutive law. The energy balance equation, formed as the product of ice velocity with the ice momentum balance equation, describes changes to the kinetic and potential energy densities as power is input to the ice by wind and current. The momentum balance equation may also be used to describe the ice-stress divergence, air stress, and water stress, but the scalar form of the energy balance is simpler to understand. This paper provides new interpretations of several terms in the energy balance equation, in particular power input by air and water stress and by sea-surface tilt. Barometric pressure fields and drifting buoys deployed on the Chukchi Sea ice cover during 1982 provide wind, ice motion and current measurements that allow each term in the energy balance equation to be evaluated as a function of time. Magnitudes of power input by wind and current show how the energy balance is decomposed and help describe the relative importance of these driving forces. In the nearshore Chukchi Sea during February, March and April 1982, both wind and current provided significant forcing of the ice. Ice stress was also important and, at times, dominated other terms in the mechanical energy balance.
Electromagnetic momentum balance equation and the force density in material media