CONTOUR MAPPING OF ARCTIC BASIN ICE DRAFT AND ROUGHNESS PARAMETERS

A data base of ice draft and roughness parameters has been constructed for selected portions of the Arctic Ocean based upon analysis of under-ice draft distribution data acquired by inverted echo sounder systems on submarines. From the voyages of 12 submarines which traversed the Alaskan, Canadian, and central Arctic regions of the Arctic Ocean during the summer and winter seasons, a series of mean ice draft and deep-draft keel statistics was calculated for 50-km segments along each submarine track. Contour maps of the mean ice draft, its standard deviation, the mean keel draft, and the spatial frequency of ice keels were constructed. They show that the greatest ice drafts, the roughest ice, and the greatest number of deep-draft keels are found off the north coasts of the Canadian Archipelago and Greenland due to ice convergence on these land barriers.