A fresh look at how ocean waves and sea ice interact.

Because of their capacity to alter floe size distribution and concentration and consequently to influence atmosphere-ocean fluxes, there is a compelling justification and demand to include waves in ice/ocean models and earth system models. Similarly, global wave forecasting models like WAVEWATCH III need better parametrizations to capture the effects of a sea ice cover such as the marginal ice zone on incoming wave energy. Most parametrizations of wave propagation in sea ice assume without question that the frequency-dependent attenuation which is observed to occur with distance travelled is exponential, i.e.  =  e This is the solution of the simple first-order linear ordinary differential equation d/d = - , which follows from an Airy wave mode ansatz [Formula: see text] Yet, in point of fact, it now appears that exponential decay may not be observed consistently and a more general equation of the type d/d = -  is proposed to allow for a broader range of attenuation behaviours should this be necessary to fit data.This article is part of the theme issue 'Modelling of sea-ice phenomena'.