Modeling sea ice in the marginal ice zone as a dense granular flow with rheology inferred from discrete element model data

The marginal ice zone (MIZ) represents the periphery of the sea ice cover. In this region, the macroscale behavior of the sea ice results from collisions and enduring contact between ice floes. This configuration closely resembles that of dense granular flows, which have been modeled successfully with the \(\mu(I)\) rheology. Here, we present a continuum model based on the \(\mu(I)\) rheology which treats sea ice as a compressible fluid, with the local sea ice concentration given by a dilatancy function \(\Phi(I)\). We infer expressions for \(\mu(I)\) and \(\Phi(I)\) by nonlinear regression using data produced with a discrete element method (DEM) which considers polygonal-shaped ice floes. We do this by driving the sea ice with a one-dimensional shearing ocean current. The resulting continuum model is a nonlinear system of equations with the sea ice velocity, local concentration, and pressure as unknowns. The rheology is given by the sum of a plastic and a viscous term. In the context of a periodic patch of ocean, which is effectively a one dimensional problem, and under steady conditions, we prove this system to be well-posed, present a numerical algorithm for solving it, and compare its solutions to those of the DEM. These comparisons demonstrate the continuum model's ability to capture most of the DEM's results accurately. The continuum model is particularly accurate for ocean currents faster than 0.25 m/s; however, for low concentrations and slow ocean currents, the continuum model is less effective in capturing the DEM results. In the latter case, the lack of accuracy of the continuum model is found to be accompanied by the breakdown of a balance between the average shear stress and the integrated ocean drag extracted from the DEM.