Ice breakout, Mcmurdo Sound, Antarctica

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Abstract
The mechanics of the breakout of annual ice and shelf ice in McMurdo Sound is becoming increasingly important as the logistics, communications, and scientific facilities are expanded at the southern end of Hut Point Peninsula. An understanding of the processes behind ice breakout depends on an appreciation of a number of variables, of what Paige and Lee (1967) call “extrinsic and intrinsic factors”. This paper attempts to evaluate the effect of one extrinsic variable, that is, the relation between ice breakout in McMurdo Sound and the dispersal of pack ice in the Ross Sea, where fast ice is confronted with the full disintegrating influences of waves and swell. Storms developed within the open waters of the Ross Sea are capable of generating wave periods of from 2–7 seconds, but with the dispersal of pack ice within, and to the north of the Ross Sea, areas of fast ice in McMurdo Sound and along the Victoria Land coast, can be penetrated by waves transmitted from the zone of western air mass transport. Ice observations over the last 11 years indicate that the time and extent of the ice breakout in McMurdo Sound can be linked with the dispersal of pack ice in the Ross Sea.

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