Objectives
With the ICEWAVEGUIDE project, there are many scientific questions, which we will be able to investigate.
1. Which ambiant noise frequencies are the most relevant to infer the ice thickness ?
2. What is the best trade-off between the number of sensors in the array and the accuracy of ice thickness evaluation ?
3. What is the best approach to provide a quantitative metric for ice damage :
- a measure of effective Young’s Modulus ?
- an evaluation of the scattering mean free path of the seismic waves guided in the ice ?
4. Tide in Van Mijen fjord changes the water level in the lake by about one meter. What information can we get out of the tide in the lake ?
5. Can the seismic array be used to characterize (locate, magnitude evaluation...) weak seismic events caused be cracking in the ice ?
6. Can we relate the thickness of the ice to short-term trends in temperature ?
Once established with actual field data at the Vallunden Lake, the concept introduced in the ICEWAVEGUIDE project is expected to have strong scientific impacts on glaciology, geophysics and by extension in environmental sciences too.
Impacts on Glaciology
Obtaining insights about ice mechanical resistance and its level of structural damage would be a substantial contribution to current knowledge, for example for multi-physics modeling purposes. This information could be integrated radar- or sonar-based applications as well. Also, it should be emphasized that with the present methodology the measure is continuous for as long as the seismic (...)
Impacts on Geophysics
If successful, the temporal (over 1 month) and spatial (along the seismic arrays) variations of the ice layer building up on Vallunden Lake will be monitored with an original approach involving cutting-edge geophysical technology and methodology, relying on leaky guided waves measurements. Such waves are a well-known phenomenon in Geophysics. Yet so far they have proved difficult to measure (...)
Impacts on Environmental sciences
By showing that variations of ice thickness and mechanical properties at Vallunden Lake can be monitored for several weeks, it will be possible to relate these variations to those of the temperature, thus allowing short-term trends to be established. Once this concept is proved, a transfer towards sea ice is only one step away, but it is of course subject to opportunities of an access to the (...)
