Morphodynamics of melting ice over turbulent warm water streams

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to analyze how melting ice layers develop morphodynamics over turbulent warm water streams, revealing different undulation patterns and ripple formations influenced by water speed and ice-water interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of ice melt morphodynamics, highlighting the role of turbulence and instability mechanisms in ripple formation and evolution.

Findings

Low water speeds cause streamwise undulations explained by heat-momentum transfer analogy.

Higher water speeds lead to spanwise ripples driven by ice-water interaction instabilities.

Ripple migration velocity is much slower than turbulence velocities.

Abstract

We investigate the morphodynamics of an ice layer over a turbulent stream of warm water using numerical simulations. At low water speeds, characteristic streamwise undulations appear, which can be explained by the Reynolds analogy between heat and momentum transfer. As the water speed increases, these undulations combine with spanwise ripples of a much greater length scale. These ripples are generated by a melting mechanism controlled by the instability originating from the ice-water interactions, and, through a melting/freezing process, they evolve downstream with a migration velocity much slower than the turbulence characteristic velocity.