Abstract
Sea ice is a porous mushy layer composed of ice crystals and
interstitial brine. The dense brine tends to sink through the ice,
driving convection. Downwelling at the edge of convective cells leads to
the development of narrow, entirely liquid brine channels. The channels
provide an efficient pathway for drainage of the cold, saline brine into
the underlying ocean. This brine rejection provides an important
buoyancy forcing on the ocean, and causes variation of the internal
structure and properties of sea ice on seasonal and shorter timescales.
This process is inherently multiscale, with simulations requiring
resolution from O(mm) brine-channel scales to O(m) mushy-layer dynamic
scales. We present new, fully 3-dimensional numerical simulations of ice
formation and convective brine rejection that model flow through a
reactive porous ice matrix with evolving porosity. To accurately resolve
the wide range of dynamical scales, our simulations exploit Adaptive
Mesh Refinement using the Chombo framework. This allows us to integrate
over several months of ice growth, providing insights into mushy-layer
dynamics throughout the winter season. The convective desalination of
sea ice promotes increased internal solidification, and we find that
convective brine drainage is restricted to a narrow porous layer at the
ice-ocean interface. This layer evolves as the ice grows thicker over
time. Away from this interface, stagnant sea ice consists of a network
of previously active brine channels that retain higher solute
concentrations than the surrounding ice. We investigate the response of
ice growth and brine drainage to varying atmospheric cooling conditions,
and consider the potential implications for ice-ocean brine fluxes,
nutrient transport, and sea ice ecology.