The nature of the winter bering sea marginal ice zone

In the winter Bering Sea, the Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ) exhibits the following characteristics: it shows a dramatic increase in ice thickness and roughness between the ice interior and edge; it interacts with the atmosphere to produce a local convergence and divergence of the wind and ice field; and its position during periods of rapid ice advance is influenced by interaction of the ice edge features with an oceanic front. The following paper discusses each of these processes, then describes briefly a forthcoming field experiment designed to understand how the environmental conditions interact with the pack ice to determine the ice edge position as well as other MIZ properties.