Formation of brine channels in sea-ice
Abstract
Liquid salty micro-channels (brine) between growing ice platelets in sea ice are an important habitat for - binding microalgaea with great impact on polar ecosystems. The structure formation of ice platelets is microscopically described and a phase field model is developed. The pattern formation during solidification of the two-dimensional interstitial liquid is considered by two coupled order parameters, the tetrahedricity as structure of ice and the salinity. The coupling and time-evolution of these order parameters are described by a consistent set of three model parameters. They determine the velocity of the freezing process and the structure formation, the phase diagram, the super-cooling and super-heating region, and the specific heat. The model is used to calculate the short-time frozen micro-structures. The obtained morphological structure is compared with the vertical brine pore space obtained from Xray computed tomography.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1406.5031,
title = {Formation of brine channels in sea-ice},
author = {K. Morawetz and S. Thoms and B. Kutschan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1406.5031},
year = {2017}
}