Drift ice is floating sea ice composed primarily of saline water that has frozen into consolidated or unconsolidated floes, typically ranging from centimeters to several meters in thickness. As a substance, it consists of a porous matrix of ice crystals, brine inclusions, gas bubbles, and entrained sediments or biogenic material, with physical properties (density, salinity, thermal conductivity, and mechanical strength) that vary with temperature, age, and brine drainage. Drift ice is mechanically and thermodynamically active, undergoing deformation, rafting, ridging, and melt–freeze cycles, and it moves under the combined forcing of ocean currents, wind stress, and Coriolis effects within the marginal ice zone and pack ice regions.
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