A Simple Model for Seawater Crystallization
in the Temperature Spectrum

P. V. Bogorodsky and A. V. Pnyushkov

Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
e-mail: bogorodski@aari.mv.ru

Received February 16, 2006

Abstract—A model of sea ice growth as an expanded region of a phase transition (mushy zone) with a linear
temperature profile is developed. The linear temperature distribution agrees with the mushy zone by introducing
an equivalent porosity determined by its thermodynamical condition. This approach does not require any a pri-
ori information about the dependence of the porosity on the temperature and salinity; it rather allows us to
obtain this relation from a solution of the mathematical problem. The model makes it possible to calculate the
thickness of the growing ice and to estimate its main characteristics as well as the heat capacity of the under-
ice layer under the conditions of undisturbed growth at any moment of the autumn–winter season up to its max-
imal thickness with account for the snow accumulation, basin depth, varying regime of cooling, and water salin-
ity.

DOI: 10.1134/S0001437007040078

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