Figure 54. Scheme of brine cell migration in sea 

 ice during the summer (left) and the 

 winter (right) . 



Malmgren gives an observation made by him during the spring of 1924 to prove the ice poros- 

 ity and the brine seepage through it. A hole about one meter thick was dug in an ice field on which 

 there was no water. On the following day, the hole proved to be filled with brine of 51. o/oo sa- 

 linity, while the salinity of the surrounding sea water was 28 o/oo and the salinity of the ice itself 

 was 3 o/oo, which indicated that the brine had seeped from the surrounding ice. Savel'ev observed 

 a brine salinity of 72.75 o/oo with a water salinity of 33. 75 o/oo and an ice salinity of 3. 75 o/oo 

 (at the 30 to 40 cm level) on Uedineniya Island in 1939. 



Captain Sverdrup's observations in the regions north of Spitsbergen are also extremely inter- 

 esting. He indicates that on 18 April 1895, at an air temperature of -23°, he saw a drop in the 

 shadow under a projecting angle of a large chunk of ice. This drop was as salty as the most con- 

 centrated brine. Obviously, this drop was the result of brine seepage through the ice capillaries. 



Aside from a desalinification of the upper ice layers (of the hummocks rising above the level 

 surface of ice) the descending movement of brine which is particularly intense during summer 

 causes an irregular vertical distribution of salinity. During this, the salinity reaches its maximum 

 concentrations in the middle parts of the ice. 



Malmgren summarized his numerous observations of the vertical distribution of ice salinity 

 during the course of a year in a chart (figure 55) warning, however, that this chart gives only a 



4 5 



SALINITY 



Figure 55. Chart of the changes in thickness 

 and salinity of sea ice over a year. 



147 



