HR: 1340h
AN: C33B-1131    [Abstracts]
TI: Landfast Ice Breakouts on the Northern Alaskan Coast
AU: * Blazey, B
EM: bblazey@berkeley.edu
AF: Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AU: Mahoney, A
C33B-1131 AF: Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99709 United States
AU: Eicken, H
C33B-1131 AF: Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99709 United States
AB: Utilizing Radarsat Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery, we visually identified landfast ice breakouts along the coast of Northern Alaska and Northwestern Canada during the 8 annual cycles between 1996 and 2004. Landfast ice is defined as ice which is both contiguous with the coast and lacks detectable motion for a period of approximately 20 days. We attributed a severity level to each break-out according to the water depth at the resulting landfast ice edge and its proximity to the coast. The breakouts were binned by month, which showed that the majority of high-severity breakouts, where the new landfast ice edge lies within 1 km of the coast, occur at the end of the annual cycle, but they can occur at any time of year. Examination of the spatial variability of the breakouts reveals that the western Beaufort Sea coast experiences fewer high-severity breakouts than the regions to the east and west. Less severe breakouts do not exhibit clear monthly or regional trends, but their occurrence should still be of interest to coastal communities and those involved with near shore operations in the Arctic.
DE: 0700 CRYOSPHERE (4540)
DE: 0750 Sea ice (4540)
DE: 0754 Leads (4540)
DE: 0758 Remote sensing
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005