Sea ice in the Arctic and the Antarctic plays a well-recognised part in climate and ocean modelling. One aspect of some interest is the thermal response of sea ice to solar radiation (e.g., Hanesiak and others, 1999; Flato and Brown, 1996; Key and others, 1996). In temperature measurements taken to calculate the thermal conductivity we have noted (McGuinness and others, 1998; Trodahl and others, 2000) daily oscillations consistent with solar heating. The accuracy and resolution of these measurements provide a direct measurement of the thermal effect of solar radiation. A preliminary analysis of the observed thermal response to solar heating appears in Trodahl and others (2000), and we seek to extend this work here. In particular we seek to more accurately analyse here the conductive and volumetric heating effects.
In this paper we report on the temperature data gathered in McMurdo Sound, we describe the Monte-Carlo scattering simulations performed to calculate the absorbed solar power as a function of depth in sea ice, we outline and solve a mathematical model for the diffusion of heat in sea ice that incorporates solar heating as a distributed source term, and finally we compare and discuss the results.