PREDICTION OF ICEBERG TRAJECTORIES FOR THE NORTH-ATLANTIC AND ARCTIC OCEANS

Icebergs are a well-known hazard for shipping. Their study also provid es information about diverse geophysical processes, as varied as ocean circulation, air-sea fluxes, calving rates of glaciers or the mass ba lance of ice sheets. As a first step to obtaining this information fro m iceberg data we have developed a model of iceberg drift driven by oc ean and atmospheric forcing derived from general circulation models. W e have applied the drift model to a distribution of typical icebergs r eleased from the main tidewater glaciers of the North Atlantic and Arc tic Oceans. We demonstrate that the main driving force of iceberg moti on is rooted in the unsteady component of oceanic advection. From simu lated trajectories we are able to reproduce the observed southwards li mit of iceberg penetration and demonstrate sometimes surprising geogra phical links between iceberg origin and ultimate melting zones.