Author(s)

P. Wadhams & N.R. Davis

Abstract

Using data from an Arctic submarine cruise in spring 1987, the authors employ autocorrelation and spectral analysis techniques to investigate the nature of the roughness of the ice underside and its geographical variation. It is found that the fractal roughness varies systematically over the Arctic and is negatively correlated with other commonly accepted parameters of ice roughness such as mean draft. The fractal dimension lies in the range 1.40 to 1.48 in the Arctic Basin, and 1.61 to 1.77 in the Greenland Sea. Good consistency is demonstrated between two ways of computing the fractal dimension, using the autocorrelation at small lags and the trend of the power spectrum in a wavelength range from 10 m to several hundred metres. 1 Introduction Most of our information on the thi

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