the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 29 Jul 2025
An integrated multi-instrument methodology for studying marginal ice zone dynamics and wave-ice interactions
Abstract. Wave-driven fragmentation is the key mechanism shaping the Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ). Capturing this process is therefore essential for improving sea ice models, which currently do not fully capture the complex interactions between the forcing imposed by waves and the nonlinear dynamics of the resulting sea ice breakup and deformation. To investigate these interactions, we introduce a comprehensive multi-instrument dataset from a field campaign in the MIZ of the St. Lawrence Estuary, Canada, designed to characterize wave propagation and mechanical properties of sea ice under natural forcing conditions. The dataset integrates synchronized measurements from geophone arrays, wave buoys, smartphones configured as motion sensors, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), all collected during coordinated deployments across diverse ice types and sea states.
Seismic data, recorded with geophone arrays, enable estimation of the ice thickness and elastic properties via active and passive wavefield analyses. Concurrently, wave buoys and smartphones capture ocean wave characteristics including amplitude, wavelength, and attenuation near ice edges. UAV imagery is processed with advanced methods to detect vertical ice displacements with sub-centimetre sensitivity, allowing extraction of wave dispersion relations in different ice conditions. Preliminary analyses demonstrate strong agreement between independent measurement methods, validating the dataset’s quality. This multi-sensor approach offers unique opportunities to improve our understanding of wave-ice interactions, wave attenuation, and fracture dynamics in situ, thus offering a valuable resource for the sea ice and oceanographic research community to gain insight in wave-induced ice break-up mechanisms under natural conditions.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-3304', Anonymous Referee #1, 01 Sep 2025
In this manuscript, the authors discuss the use of several instruments to build a rich dataset that can be used to study waves in ice and wave-ice interaction in the MIZ. This is a timely and interesting study, and I am generally supportive of publication. I have a few comments that the authors may want to consider, see below.
- At present, the manuscript is a bit "strange" to read. At least it took me a couple of reads to really understand that this was only discussing methods. I think re-reading that this is relatively clear in the abstract, but could be made even clearer in the introduction. Similarly, the end of the paper feels very "abrupt", going from what feels a "methods" section directly to a conclusion and the end of the manuscript. I wonder if it may be worth to work a bit more on the presentation and structure of the manuscript, to group together the experiment description and data acqusition methodology on one hand, and the "preliminary analysis" / "proof of concept" that the data acquisition works well, on the other hand - i.e. creating a form of "introduction, methods, results" structure, which likely is closer to what the reader will expect.
- Similarly, I think that the authors should try to make it even clearer what the main values created by this manuscript are: in my opinion, but the authors may disagree of course: showing that the methodology works, but also and maybe as important providing all the data. The data on the https://entrepot.recherche.data.gouv.fr/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.57745/OUWL0Z link are actually quite big - close to 100GB. This is not clear to the reader before visiting the URL, and should be presented and explained better: the present "Data Availability" section does not really convey this, neither I think does the text. It may also be worth spending more time discussing these data files, what is interesting in which one, which one contain what kind of conditions, etc.
- I also miss a more "personal" / "analysis-focused" discussion of the data. It is already nice to read that you were able to perform these measurements and that this is doable, however to be truly useful to me, I would need to know more: i) the technical details (hardawre and software used, see below) so that I can really reproduce all or part of the measurements in my user case. ii) Maybe even more important, I miss an honest, frank discussion about the different methods: what works well or not so well in the experience of the authors? What are the "tricks and tips" the authors have discovered from their field experiments (I think this is quite key in a paper that is focused on method rather than scientific results per se). What are the limitations and caveats of the methods presented here? I think this is a key area in which the authors can provide added value for the reader and the field, and that this is not fully covered now.
- A minor language / taste point: maybe be careful of too strong formulations; for example "Wave-driven fragmentation is the key mechanism shaping the Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ).": I agree that it is a key mechanism, but is it really *the* mechanism, in all conditions? Sometimes, the MIZ is broken from before, and then currents and winds play a major role for example.
- Regarding geophones: as you point out, there have been a lot of developments recently, in particular regarding cost. A possible reference point on this is the recent work of Voermans et al. https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2023.63 in which it was possible to deploy geophones for a cost of O(500USD) per geophone, and to infer back information about the sea ice properties passively. Can this be relevant for your future expeditions too, or are you limited to using active sources anyways due to the lack of other naturally occuring signal in your area of interest? How does your solution compares to what is described there?
- Some of the instruments are described in quite a bit of details (for example, the UAV data acquisition setup - there is enough information that I could likely find the hardware and software I should use if I wanted to reproduce similar measurements), but for some others, the information is quite limited (for example, the geophones and signal source design / models used are not clear to me?), as discussed above. Consider adding an Appendix with a summary of all the hardware and software used, for example in a series of tables, to make the technical aspects easier to reproduce and investigate in more details for the reader curious to do so?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3304-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-3304', Anonymous Referee #2, 04 Sep 2025
General comments:
An impressive and complete methodology and dataset! Looking forward to where this goes next and the new avenues it opens for more data on wave-induced sea ice fracture!
Apart from the very minor specific comments, I had just one question (not necessarily asking for this to be addressed within the manuscript, I understand if you want to steer clear of speculations): can you comment on whether this dispersion relation was expected? i.e. that the presence of sea ice did not change the dispersion relation relative to that which we expect from open water? If so, why? Was it due somehow to this specific sea ice type? I ask because I know that there is quite a lot of literature regarding developing dispersion relations which do consider the presence of sea ice (i.e. with the implication that the presence of sea ice can modify the dispersion relation).
Specific comments
St .Lawrence
- Lawrence
"Therefore, achieving accurate and multi-scale estimates of ice parameters will set the new standards of sea ice monitoring"
- Consider rewording, this is a bit hard to follow
Regarding figure five
- The polarization of the flexural wave is in the sagittal plane,
- This is the out-of-plane wave, correct? Is it necessary to have two different naming conventions? If so, the first time “flexural wave” is introduced, maybe put “out-of-plane wave” in brackets next to it
- It would be helpful to guide the reader a bit more if you included panel labels which are referred to in the text (fig.5 a-i)
"where on can see", should be "where one can see"
figure 9 is missing “a), b)” labels on the panels despite being referred to in the caption
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3304-RC2
Data sets
Dataset for "An integrated multi-instrument methodology for studying marginal ice zone dynamics and wave-ice interactions" Sebastien Kuchly, Baptiste Auvity, Nicolas Mokus, Matilde Bureau, Paul Nicot, Amaury Fourgeaud, Véronique Dansereau, Antonin Eddi, Stéphane Perrard, Dany Dumont, and Ludovic Moreau https://doi.org/10.57745/OUWL0Z
Model code and software
Icewave Sebastien Kuchly, Baptiste Auvity, Antonin Eddi, Stéphane Perrard, Dany Dumont, and Ludovic Moreau https://github.com/Turbotice/icewave
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