title: Sea-ice thickness measurement based on the dispersion of ice swell.
abstract: The dispersion of flexural waves propagating in the Arctic sea ice cover is exploited in order to locally measure the ice thickness. The observed dispersion, for waves filtered in the 4-20 s period interval, at up to 4 broad-band seismometers deployed in Spring 2007 near the North Pole, is compared to a parameterized model that accounts for a complex wavefield made of a superposition of independent plane waves with different amplitudes and back-azimuth angles. The parameterization, that includes finding the best modeled ice thickness, is performed by using the cross-correlation functions between the seismometers. The ice thickness is estimated to 2.5 ± 0.2 m for the ~1 km-large floe the seismic stations were deployed on, which is coherent with other, independent measurements at this site. This study thus demonstrates the feasibility of using broad-band seismometers deployed on the sea-ice in order to passively measure the ice thickness, without requiring active sources nor human intervention.
authors.affiliation: ISTerre, CNRS, Université de Savoie, Campus Scientifique, 73376 Le Bourget du Lac Cedex, France. david.marsan@univ-savoie.fr
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Marsan
authors.forename: Jérome
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Larose
authors.forename: Jean-Philippe
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Métaxian