An X-ray micro-tomographic study of the pore space, permeability and percolation threshold of young sea ice

Maus, Sönke; Schneebeli, Martin; Wiegmann, Andreas

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4047-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4047-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4047-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 8

Research article

|

24 Aug 2021

Research article |

| 24 Aug 2021

An X-ray micro-tomographic study of the pore space, permeability and percolation threshold of young sea ice

Sönke Maus, Martin Schneebeli, and Andreas Wiegmann

Data sets

X-ray microtomographic imagery of young sea ice from Adventfjorden, Math2Market GmbH, scan data S. Maus, M. Schneebeli, and A. Wiegmann https://doi.org/10.30423/scandata.scan-2021-01

Video supplement

Vertical evolution of a horizontal cross section of the sea ice brine pore space S. Maus, M. Schneebeli, and A. Wiegmann https://doi.org/10.30423/video.scandata-2021-01

Short summary

As the hydraulic permeability of sea ice is difficult to measure, observations are sparse. The present work presents numerical simulations of the permeability of young sea ice based on a large set of 3D X-ray tomographic images. It extends the relationship between permeability and porosity available so far down to brine porosities near the percolation threshold of a few per cent. Evaluation of pore scales and 3D connectivity provides novel insight into the percolation behaviour of sea ice.