Recent Development in Ice Engineering

Ice Engineering is associated with how to solve challenges from different kinds of ice, such as, sea ice, river ice, lake ice, icing, and snow in cold regions. The aim is to design special structures which could resist structural and global impact from drifting ice and freezing ice.

The Russian language: how to teach it so that it becomes “great and mighty”?

Recognizing the undoubted merits of the modern methodology of teaching the Russian language and the undoubted methodologists’ successes achieved in recent decades, we cannot but realize the need not only not to be satisfied with what has been achieved, but, on the contrary, to do everything in our power to search for answers that correspond to the changes taking place in the country and the world. In everything that concerns the Russian language, it was the time that turned out to be surprising in its social energetics as the exponent of a huge set of problems requiring urgent solution. Just as uncontrolled drifting ice floes converge and collide with each other, so at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st centuries, different layers of issues related to the development of the Russian language, its connections with other languages, interpersonal, interethnic, interethnic and interstate relations collided. Finally, the attitude towards it on the part of the younger generations that have already entered and continue to enter life, including those formed by the academic subject «Russian language». In the article, the author reflects on the meaning of the Russian language, speaks about the methods of teaching it, which are built as methods of teaching a foreign language, and shows that with this approach the language loses its flexibility and liveliness and is filled with formulas and clichés.

Methane cycling within sea ice: results from drifting ice during late spring, north of Svalbard

Summer sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has declined sharply during the last decades, leading to changes in ice structures. The shift from thicker multi-year ice to thinner first-year ice changes the methane storage transported by sea ice into remote areas far away from its origin. As significant amounts of methane are stored in sea ice, minimal changes in the ice structure may have a strong impact on the fate of methane when ice melts. Hence, sea ice type is an important indicator of modifications to methane pathways. Based on measurements of methane concentration and its isotopic composition on a drifting ice floe, we report on different storage capacities of methane within first-year ice and ridged/rafted ice, as well as methane supersaturation in the seawater. During this early melt season, we show that ice type and/or structure determines the fate of methane and that methane released into seawater is a predominant pathway. We suggest that sea ice loaded with methane acts as a source of methane for polar surface waters during late spring.

Mechanics of oscillations and waves in the ice of the Аrctic ocean during compression and ridging

One of the main scientific and practical problems in the Arctic is the study of the dynamic state of the sea ice cover. The main parameters in the general model of drifting ice are the drift velocity vector, friction stress at the air-ice and ice-water interfaces, and the forces of dynamic interaction of ice fields. Establishing the connection between the large-scale processes in the atmosphere-ice-ocean system is necessary for developing methods of forecasting ice compression and ridging and the formation of local and extended fractures and leads, which help improve the existing climate models. The main aim is to obtain results of full-scale instrumental measurements of parameters of ice large-scale mechanics and dynamics, which provide a physical basis for explaining the nature of observed large-scale ice processes and allow one to perform physical parametrization. To accomplish this aim and evaluate the physicomechanical condition of the drifting ice cover of the Arctic Ocean, the “Transarktika-2019” expedition performed a real-time ice monitoring in April 2019. The investigation was conducted using seismometers and tiltmeters installed on the ice such that they formed a triangle with the sides measuring up to two kilometers. Data has been obtained on the wave and oscillation processes of crack formation, compression and ridging of ice. The possibilities of deciphering the initial data on the physics of wave and oscillatory processes in the icewater system considerably increase when using the known methods of processing seismic signals. With use of spectral Fourier analysis wavelet-transformation of oscillations significanlty extending possibilities of the seismic method at revelation of prognostic signs of crack formation and compression was applied. It is shown that the dynamics of ice processes can be connected with oceanic swell and tidal events. A possibility is created for obtaining new results in the investigation of large-scale mechanics of sea ice.

Methane cycling within sea ice; results from drifting ice during late spring, north of Svalbard

Summer sea ice-cover in the Arctic Ocean has declined sharply during the last decades, leading to changes in ice structures. The shift from thicker multi-year ice to thinner first-year ice changes the methane storage transported by sea ice into remote areas far away from the sea ice’s origin. As significant amounts of methane are stored in sea ice, minimal changes in the ice structure may have a strong impact on the fate of methane when ice melts. Hence, the type of sea ice is an important indicator of modifications to methane pathways. Our study is based on the combined sample analyses of methane concentration and its isotopic composition coupled with measurements of nutrient concentrations and physical variables performed on a drifting ice floe, as well as in the traversed water in late spring 2017, north of Svalbard. We report on different storage capacities of methane within first-year ice and rafted/ridged ice, as well as methane super-saturation in the seawater during the drifting time. We show that the ice type/structures determine the fate of methane during the early melt season and that methane released into seawater is a predominant pathway. Thereafter, the pathway of methane in seawater is subjected to oceanographic processes. We point to sea ice as a potential source of methane super-saturation in Polar Surface Water.

Temporary seismic network on drifting ice in the North Barents Sea

<p>Despite the strong attention to the investigations in the Arctic its advance quite slowly. The harsh climatic conditions and big expenses slow down realization of the fieldwork in high latitudes. Therefore, scientists from over the world looks for new technologies, which could optimize and reduce the costs of the fieldworks that aimed at investigation of the geological structure beneath the Arctic Ocean. From March to May 2019 scientific expedition on the Expedition Vessel “Akademic Tryoshnikov” operated by the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute that belongs to Rosgidromet were conducted in the framework of the program “TransArctica 2019” first stage. In the framework of the seismological experiments 6 temporary seismic stations at 4 different locations were installed on a drifted ice floe in the North Barents Sea. The first aim of the experiment was to elaborate technology of installation of the seismic stations on the drifting ice floes. The second aim was to check if obtained seismological records could be used for registration of the local and remote earthquakes, which are meant to investigate the lithosphere structure in the Arctic regions, and for investigation of the processes within the ice floe.</p><p>The stations were installed in the April 2019 on the ice floe near the EV “Akademik Tryoshnikov” that were “frizzed” in the ice floe and drifted together with them. After analysis of the recoded data the following types of the seismic signal generated by processes in the ice were observed:</p><ul><li>- background signal from bending-gravitational waves with periods from 1 to 30 sec. Swell waves with periods from 17 to 30 sec were observed permanently during the whole period of network operation;</li> <li>- continuous mechanical vibrations (self-oscillations) with a period of up to 2-3 sec;</li> <li>- stick-slip relaxation self-oscillations with a period from 0.1 s to several minutes;</li> <li>- mechanical movements of ice due to compression or stretching of ice caused by chaotic different scales fluctuations in the drift velocity of ice floes;</li> <li>- process of ice fracturing due to compression or stretching of ice.</li> </ul><p>Results of monitoring of the ice cover has shown that in the most cases there are no direct correlations of processes within the ice floes and local hydrometeorological condition. During the process of ice cover fracturing an increased value of the ice horizontal movement were observed. Analysis of the seismic signal from ice events has shown that stick-slip events preceded origin of the ice fractures.</p><p>As a result of the initial analysis of the seismograms several signals from remote and regional earthquakes were detected. For example, an earthquake that according to the ISC bulletin occur at 08:18:23UTC on April 11, 2019 near the Japan (40.35°N, 143.35°E, 35 km depth, MS = 6.0) were detected. A local earthquake that occur approximately at 05:58UTC on April 10, 2019 at a distance of ~500 km. Due to close location of stations to each other the localization of the earthquake is impossible.</p><p>This work is supported by the RSCF project #18-17-00095.</p>

Analysis of tidal sea-ice movement using a drifting ice beacon array in the Barents Sea

<p>In an experiment to validate an ice forecast and route optimization system, an array of 15 ice drift beacons/buoys were deployed between Edgeøya and Kong Karls Land in the east of Svalbard to measure the sea ice movement. These beacons recorded data at a sampling frequency of 15 minutes in the duration from March 2014 to May 2014 with different start and end dates based on their life. The particularly short time step captures the small scale effect of tides on the drifting ice. In this region of the Barents Sea, the frequency of the inertial motion is very close to the M2 tidal frequency. Hence, it is not possible to extract the tidal motion from the time series data of the buoys by using a Fourier analysis. It is also likely that these effects will interact. Instead, we develop a physics-based <em>free drift</em> ice model that can simulate the drift at all tidal and other frequencies.</p><p>The model is forced by winds obtained from the ERA5 Reanalysis dataset of ECMWF and ocean currents obtained from the Global Ocean Analysis product of CMEMS. Due to the effect of tides, the model is also forced by the tides obtained from the Global Tide and Surge Model (GTSM v3.0) which is built upon Delft3D-FM unstructured mesh code. This free drift model is validated against 8 of the 15 beacon trajectories. The model along with the observed data can be then be used to obtain insights on the relationship between the sea ice velocities and the tides. This will be particularly useful to obtain the effect of ice drift on tides in tidal models.</p><p>The model uncertainty is mainly due to oceanic and atmospheric drag coefficients, C<sub>dw</sub> and C<sub>da</sub>, respectively, and the sea ice thickness, h<sub>i</sub>. This study also focuses on optimizing the ratio of drag coefficients (C<sub>dw</sub>/C<sub>da</sub>) for the different beacon trajectories while varying the ice thickness between 0.1 m - 1.5 m and the ice-air drag coefficient between (0.5-2.5)x10<sup>-3</sup>. This ratio facilitates the evaluation of the frictional drag between the ice-water interface and thus, helps in determining the effect of ice on tides in tidal models.</p>