Sea ice drift off Queen Maud Land, Antarctica

Abstract

Characteristics of sea ice drift off Queen Maud Land are described on the basis of the Argos buoy deployed on the ice floe in the pack ice region off Syowa Station on February 20,1992. The drift of the buoy is consistently westward with some variability. Averaged velocity of westward drift is about 20cm/s in the region from 39°E (February 20) to 14°E (April 10). The drift velocity becomes especially large west of the Riiser-Larsen Peninsula. Drift vectors of sea ice off Queen Maud Land are obtained from 68 NOAA AVHRR images. In general, the drift vectors approximately follow the bottom contours : they are mostly westward in the coastal region, northward in the east of Gunnerus Ridge. Both the buoy and AVHRR analyses suggest that the sea ice drift is considerably influenced by the ocean current.