The Ice-Mitt Project
Evaluating a first-year sea ice core for brine channel formation in Barrow, AK
The Ice-Mitt tour was a project undertaken by a group of Polar Engineers from Dartmouth College. We studied the microstructure of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, specifically the characteristics of the brine channels and air pockets in sea ice that make it so porous and permeable. Our aim was to observe the permeability differences between the structures of first year sea ice and multi-year sea ice.
This research is becoming more necessary for climate models as the volume of multi-year sea ice in the polar regions is decreasing more and more each year with increased summer melt, and is being replaced by first year seas ice the next winter…