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Most of the terms refer to the ice itself, but some refer to sailing in icy waters.
Note: The definitions given here are the current definitions unless otherwise noted.
It is possible that some of these terms had different meanings in our old logs.
ANCHOR ICE: Submerged ice attached or anchored to the bottom, irrespective of the nature of its formation.
For a detailed description of its formation, see nature-track.com
(Photo by Bruce Miller) | |  |
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BAY ICE: An archaic term that covers the range from nilas to grey.
This was bad for sailing ships as it could stop them entirely whereas they could force (or bore) through much heavier floes given wind and some looseness in the pack.
(Kevin Wood) | | No image found |
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BERGY BIT: A large piece of floating glacier ice, generally showing less than 5 m above sea level but more than 1 m and normally about 100-300 sq m in area.
(Photo from Forecasters Handbook for the Arctic) | |  |
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| BESET: Situation of a vessel surrounded by ice and unable to move. |
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| BRASH ICE: Accumulations of floating ice made up of fragments not more than 2 m across, the wreckage of other forms of ice. | |  |
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BROKEN ICE: Ice broken up into sharp pieces.
(from old logs and new image captions) | |  |
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| BUCKING: Backing off and ramming ice in order to break a way through it. |
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CAKE OF ICE: Any random piece of ice big enough to tie a ship up to.
(Kevin Wood)
(Image courtesy of the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology.) | |  |
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FAST ICE (GROUND ICE, LAND FLOE, LAND ICE): Sea ice that forms and remains fast along the coast, where it is attached to the shore, to an ice wall, to an ice front, between shoals or grounded icebergs.
Vertical fluctuations may be observed during changes of sea level.
Fast ice may be formed on site from sea water or by freezing of pack ice of any age to the shore, and it may extend a few meters or several hundred kilometers from the coast.
If it is thicker than about 2 m above sea level, it is called an ice shelf.
According to Kevin, it "often makes a pretty nice dock." | |  |
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FIRST YEAR ICE: Floating ice of no more than one year's growth developing from young ice; thickness from 0.3 to 2 meters; characteristically level where undisturbed by pressure, but where ridges occur, they are rough and sharply angular.
(Photo courtesy of Ted Maksym, United States Naval Academy) | |  |
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| FLOE: Any relatively flat, isolated piece of sea ice 20 m or more across. | |  |
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FRAZIL ICE: Fine spicules, or plates of ice, suspended in water.
(Photo courtesy of Don Perovich, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory) | |  |
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GREASE ICE: A later stage of freezing than frazil ice.
It occurs when the crystals have coagulated to form a soupy layer on the surface.
Grease ice reflects little light, giving the sea a matte appearance.
(Photo courtesy of Ted Maksym, United States Naval Academy) | |  |
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GREY ICE (GRAY ICE): Young ice 10-15 cm thick. Less elastic than nilas and breaks on swell.
Usually rafts under pressure.
(Photo courtesy of the Antarctic Sea-Ice Processes and Climate program) | |  |
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| GROUNDED ICE: Floating ice that is aground in shoal water. | | No image found |
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GROWLER: Smaller piece of ice than a bergy bit, often transparent but appearing green or almost black in color.
Usually extends less than 1 m above the sea surface and normally occupies an area of about 20 sq m.
(Photo from Forecasters Handbook for the Arctic)
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HUMMOCK: A hillock of broken ice that has been forced upwards by pressure.
May be fresh or weathered.
The submerged volume of broken ice under the hummock, forced downwards by pressure, is termed a bummock.
(Photo courtesy of Ted Maksym, United States Naval Academy) | |  |
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ICE BLINK: Ice blink refers to a white glare seen on the underside of low clouds.
An ice blink indicates the presence of light-reflecting ice which may be too far away to see.
When other means of reconnaissance are not available, travelers in the polar seas can use water sky and ice blink to get a rough idea of ice conditions at a distance.
(Photo courtesy of Dale Williams) | |  |
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| ICE FIELD: Area of pack ice consisting of floes of any size that are greater than 10 km wide. | |  |
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| ICEBERG: A massive piece of ice of greatly varying shape, more than 5 m above sea level, which has broken away from a glacier, and which may be afloat or aground. | |  |
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LEAD: Any fracture, crack or passageway through sea ice that is navigable by surface vessels.
(Credits USGS and NOAA Photo Library) | | 
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| MADE FAST TO ICE: Ship is moored to an ice floe as if it were a wharf. |
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MELT POOL/POND: Pools of melted snow and ice on the sea ice surface created during the summer melt.
(Photo courtesy of Don Perovich, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory) | |  |
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MULTIYEAR ICE: Old ice up to 10 ft (3 m) or more thick that has survived at least two summers' melt.
Hummocks even smoother than in second-year ice, and the ice is almost salt free.
The color, where snow free, is usually blue.
The melt pattern consists of large interconnecting irregular puddles and a well developed drainage system.
(Photos courtesy of Ted Maksym, United States Naval Academy from Forecasters Handbook for the Arctic) | | 
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NEW ICE: A general term for recently formed ice that includes frazil ice, grease ice, slush, and shuga, and is less than 10 cm thick.
These types of ice are composed of ice crystals that are only weakly frozen together (if at all) and have a definite form only while they are afloat. | |  |
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NILAS: A thin, elastic crust of ice bending easily on waves and swell.
Nilas has a matte surface and is up to 10 cm thick.
Under pressure it thrusts into a pattern of interlocking fingers. May be subdivided into dark nilas and light nilas.
Known to whalers as STRIP ICE.
Also: https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr/tag/nilas/
(The picture was taken by Brocken Inaglory, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2388420) | |  |
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NIP: Ice is said to nip when it forcibly presses against a ship.
A vessel so caught, though undamaged, is said to have been nipped. | |  |
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OLD ICE: Sea ice that has survived at least one summer's melt.
Most topographic features on old ice are smoother than those on first-year ice.
May be subdivided into second-year ice and multiyear ice. |
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PACK ICE (ICE PACK): Term used in a wide sense to include any area of sea ice, other than fast ice, no matter what form it takes or how it is disposed.
(Credits NOAA Photo Library) | | 
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| PACKED ICE: Small pieces closed together and held by the pressure of wind and currents. |
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PANCAKE ICE: Predominantly circular pieces of ice from 30 cm to 3 m in diameter and up to about 10 cm in thickness, with raised rims due to the pieces striking against one another.
It may be formed on a slight swell from grease ice, shuga, or slush, or as a result of the breaking of ice rind, nilas, or, under severe conditions of swell or waves, of gray ice.
Sometimes pancake ice forms at some depth, at an interface between water bodies of different physical characteristics, from where it floats to the surface; it may cover wide areas of water rapidly.
Also: https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr/tag/nilas/
https://beta.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/l ... e-pancakes
http://www.sitkanature.org/wordpress/20 ... ncake-ice/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/nt690bQqyVc
(Photos courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce and NOAA Photo Library) | | 
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POLYNYA: Any nonlinear-shaped opening in the water but enclosed by ice.
Sometimes the polynya is limited on one side by the coast and is called a shore polynya, or by fast ice and is called a flaw polynya.
Some polynyi recur annually in the same position.
Satellite view of polynyas (dark areas) near Oates Coast, Antarctica (solid white area at bottom of photo).
(Photo courtesy of NASA) | |  |
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| PORRIDGE: Small finely ground-up ice. | | No image found |
| REEVING: In polar voyaging, following up serpentine channels in the ice, till the vessel reaches open water, or reeves the pack. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26000/26 ... 00-h.htm#R | | |
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RIDGE: A line or wall of broken ice forced up by pressure; it may be fresh or weathered.
The submerged volume of broken ice under a ridge, forced downwards by pressure, is termed an ice keel.
(Photo courtesy of Don Perovich, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.) | |  |
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| ROTTEN ICE: Sea ice that has become honeycombed and is in an advanced state of disintegration. | | No image found |
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SCATTERED ICE (SCATTERING ICE): Open pack ice, covering less than half the sea surface.
Easy to navigate through without touching much ice. | |  |
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SHUGA: An accumulation of spongy white ice lumps, a few centimeters across; they are formed from grease ice or slush and sometimes from ice rising to the surface.
(Photo courtesy of the Antarctic Sea-Ice Processes and Climate program) | |  |
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SLACK ICE: Ice that is detached so that it can be worked through.
Ice is said to be SLACKING when it begins to open so as to be navigable. | |  |
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| SLUSH: Snow that is saturated and mixed with water on land or ice surfaces, or as a viscous floating mass in water after a heavy snowfall. | | No image found |
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STORIS ICE: 'Storis' means 'Big Ice' in Norwegian.
A wide belt of multi-year sea ice originating from the Arctic Ocean is normally present most of the year covering the entire east coast of Greenland. The intensity of the lows normally decrease in spring and summer, and may cause the multi-year ice to drift northwestwards along the Southwest Greenland coast in the West Greenland Current. (GEUS) | |  |
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| STRIP ICE: See NILAS. |
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| TRACKING: Following along the edge of the ice pack. |
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| WAKING: Following another vessel through leads and slack ice. |
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WATER SKY: When light hits the blue oceans or seas, some of it bounces back and enables the observer to physically see the water.
However, some of the light also is reflected back up on to the bottoms of low-lying clouds and causes a dark spot to appear underneath some clouds.
These clouds may be visible when the seas are not and can show alert and knowledgeable travelers the general direction of water.
The dark clouds over open water have long been used by polar explorers and scientists to navigate in sea ice.
(Wikipedia) | |  |
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YOUNG ICE: Ice in the transition stage between nilas and first-year ice, 10-30 cm in thickness.
May be subdivided into gray ice and gray-white ice.
(NASA satellite photo) |
If it is illegible, feel free to make your best guess or use a tilde (~) to indicate the letter(s) you cannot read.
Don't be shy about asking for help reading the ice description in the forum.
Your ship's discussion topic is generally the best place to post these questions.
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