Maximum pile-up heights for grounded ice rubble

Large grounded ice features can be found in all regions of the world where there is moving ice. This paper compiles over 230 reported ice pile-ups from several international locations including the Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, Caspian Sea, Lake Simcoe, Stonehaven Harbour (New Brunswick), west Newfoundland, Alaskan and Canadian Beaufort Sea, Norton Sound, Bering Sea, Somerset Island and offshore Sakhalin. The NRC Particle-in-Cell numerical model is used to augment the data. A plot of the rubble sail height as a function of the ice block thickness shows considerable scatter but a general increase in sail height with increasing ice thickness. The scatter in the data is real and is attributed to the fact that the conditions for producing the maximum sail height are not met in most situations. An upper bound of the data can be represented by Hs,max = 19 hB0.33 where Hs,max is the maximum pile-up height (in m), and hB is the block ice thickness (in m). This equation covers the data range up to 2 m in ice thickness. The data also clearly show that high pile-ups (on the order of 10 to 12 m high) can be generated from thin ice less than 0.5 m thick. Further, sail heights up to 30 m are possible for thicker sea ice.