Term: | Multi-year ice |
Definition: | Old ice up to 3 m or more thick that has survived at least two summers' melt. Hummocks are even smoother than in second-year ice and attain a look of mounds and hills. The surface of multiyear ice fields in places not subject to deformations is also hillocky due to non-uniform multiple melting. The ice is almost salt-free. Its color, where bare, is usually blue. As a result of melting, round puddles appear at its surface in summer and a well-developed drainage system is formed. |