Dynamics of Eddies Generated by Sea Ice Leads

Interaction between the atmosphere and ocean in sea ice–covered regions is largely concentrated in leads, which are long, narrow openings between sea ice floes. Refreezing and brine rejection in these leads inject salt that plays a key role in maintaining the polar halocline. The injected salt forms dense plumes that subsequently become baroclinically unstable, producing submesoscale eddies that facilitate horizontal spreading of the salt anomalies. However, it remains unclear which properties of the stratification and leads most strongly influence the vertical and horizontal spreading of lead-input salt anomalies. In this study, the spread of lead-injected buoyancy anomalies by mixed layer and eddy processes are investigated using a suite of idealized numerical simulations. The simulations are complemented by dynamical theories that predict the plume convection depth, horizontal eddy transfer coefficient, and eddy kinetic energy as functions of the ambient stratification and lead properties. It is shown that vertical penetration of buoyancy anomalies is accurately predicted by a mixed layer temperature and salinity budget until the onset of baroclinic instability (~3 days). Subsequently, these buoyancy anomalies are spread horizontally by eddies. The horizontal eddy diffusivity is accurately predicted by a mixing-length scaling, with a velocity scale set by the potential energy released by the sinking salt plume and a length scale set by the deformation radius of the ambient stratification. These findings indicate that the intermittent opening of leads can efficiently populate the polar halocline with submesoscale coherent vortices with diameters of ~10 km, and they provide a step toward parameterizing their effect on the horizontal redistribution of salinity anomalies.