Influence of environmental conditions on acoustical properties of sea ice

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Abstract
Sonar echo amplitude data have been collected at carrier frequencies of 188 and 120 kHz from the underside of different sea ice types. Histograms of normal incidence echo amplitudes were formed from over 90 samples of each ice type. Experiments were conducted on saline ice grown in an outdoor pond under relatively controlled conditions at the USA Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) and on the sea ice cover in the Fram Strait. Analysis shows marked variations (about a factor of 5) in the magnitude of the coherent reflection coefficients as congelation ice at the bottom of an ice sheet evolves from a growing dendritic interface to an ablating, thermally altered interface. Larger differences (about a factor of 10) are observed between growing congelation ice and slush ice, used to simulate frazil. These results indicate that important variations in acoustic regime exist in areas where different ice types are intermingled.
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