STATISTICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE GEOPHYSICAL AND ELECTRICAL-PROPERTIES OF SNOW ON LANDFAST FIRST-YEAR SEA-ICE

In this work we quantify the vertical geophysical and electrical properties of a snow cover on landfast first-year sea ice observed during the Seasonal Sea Ice Monitoring and Meddling Site (SIMMS'92) experiment. Snow grain morphology, density, salinity, temperature and wetness were measured; the volume fractions of air, ice, brine, and the complex dielectric constant of the snow were modeled over a 3-cm vertical resolution spanning a seasonal period from April to June. Our results show that over the vertical dimension the snow grain morphology, salinity, density, and fractional volumes of brine, ice, and air covary. The statistical characterization of the vertical grain morphology indicates that two distinct layers occurred under cold (-20 degrees C) and three layers under warm (-5 degrees C) atmospheric temperatures. Over the seasonal period it was shown that new snow was deposited at about 250 kg . m(-3) and quickly compacted to 375 kg . m(-3) Snow grains grew at different rates within the snow cover because of differing metamorphic conditions. Dielectrically, the snow volume followed closely the seasonal and vertical patterns of grain morphology, salinity, temperature, density and the phase proportions of water within the snow volume. As the season evolved, the increasing brine volumes and presence of water in liquid phase caused the dielectric properties to increase over several factors (epsilon'(mix)) and orders of magnitude (epsilon ''(mix)).