Sea ice fracturing on the large scale

This paper reviews observational and theoretical work on deformation and lead formation in Arctic pack ice on the geophysical scale. The observational overview includes some discussion of stress measurements in pack ice. The theoretical development focuses on isotropic and anisotropic fracture based models of pack ice and discusses the general level of strength in pack ice in terms of the energy needed to build pressure ridges. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of a class of scale independent fracture based models that can apply on all scales. Results from mechanistic idealized and basin wide simulations which yield oriented failure patterns are also presented. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.