Sea ice is a crucial component of the Earth’s climate system, affecting the ocean circulation, the atmospheric temperature, and the marine ecosystems. However, sea ice is not a simple solid material; it is a complex mixture of ice crystals, brine pockets, and air bubbles, that changes its structure and properties depending on the environmental conditions.
In this talk, Noa Kraitzman, senior lecturer in applied mathematics at Macquarie University, will explore how we can model and understand the behaviour of sea ice at different scales, from the microscopic interactions of ice and salt to the macroscopic effects of heat transfer and fluid flow. She will present two mathematical models: a thermodynamically consistent model for the liquid-solid phase change in sea ice that incorporates the effects of salt, using multi-scale analysis to derive a quasi-equilibrium Stefan-type problem. And a new rigorous derivation of bounds on the sea ice effective thermal conductivity obtained through Padé approximates and using Stieltjes integrals.
Join us on Monday, Feb. 3, at 3:10 p.m. in Hayes 109 to hear this exciting presentation. We hope to see you there!